3 Ways to Get a Bigger Bang for Your IT Buck

12.05.2011
Getting maximum results from innovative IT investments is an art. Business users may need incentives to take advantage of new capabilities that wait to be exploited.

Fortunately, there are proven management practices that, if you embrace them, can help you get the most value from your implementation of new systems-especially projects that require major change. Here are three of these techniques:

Typically, once a project is finished, IT organizations turn to the next one. CIOs assume the new application owners will identify future improvements. But CIOs with a long-term vision are remaining involved by adding a new phase to the project lifecycle.

When a project is deployed, these CIOs assign business analysts and program managers to the project team for a predefined time. Their primary goal is to support changes to the organization and business processes and help with training on new tools, all of which are needed to exploit the innovation created through an investment. Such work can take up to three years for a large project, but some organizations claim they double or triple their project's expected ROI by doing it.

You can run post-implementation support from your project-management office, where analysts can collaborate on innovative approaches for obtaining extra value.