Colin Ashurst

Improving the impact of IT development projects: the benefits realization capability model

The return that organizations derive from investments in information systems and technology continues to disappoint. While there are many theoretical prescriptions as to how the planned benefits from an information technology (IT) project might best be realized, there is very little empirical evidence, as to whether such advice is being heeded in practice. Drawing on the resource-based view of the firm, a conceptual model of a benefits realization capability is presented and developed. In this model, the benefits realization capability is operationalized through four distinct competences, each of which is underpinned by a variety of socially defined practices. The model was populated by using a thorough review of the literature to identify and categorize those specific practices that have the potential to contribute to the effective achievement of benefits from IT investment projects. These practices are then studied in an empirical examination of 25 IT projects. The analysis finds no evidence of benefits realization practices being adopted in any consistent, comprehensive or coherent manner. Effective benefits realization requires an ongoing commitment to, and focus upon, the benefits, rather than the technology, throughout a systems development, implementation and operation.

Factors Affecting the Successful Realisation of Benefits from Systems Development Projects: Findings from Three Case Studies

The return that organisations derive from investments in information systems and technology continues to disappoint. While there is a very significant body of literature on the factors that should facilitate a successful outcome from systems development, there is growing concern that these prescriptions are not having their desired effect. In this paper, we argue that the success of a systems development project should be measured in terms of its ability to deliver meaningful benefits, rather than the timely delivery of a technical artefact, and therefore organisations should adopt an explicit and proactive benefits realisation approach when investing in IT. Consequently, we sought to explore those actionable factors that might facilitate the effective realisation of benefits from systems development initiatives. Three organisations were identified that claimed to adopt a proactive approach to benefits realisation, and detailed studies of their systems development practices were conducted. Our analysis found that whilst one organisation had been successful in its adoption of a benefits realisation perspective, the other two had not, and this allowed us to identify those factors that helped to explain this difference in outcomes. In short, this paper makes an important contribution by identifying how a sub-set of traditional systems success factors might be enhanced, to give them a more explicit benefits realisation orientation. Moreover, it presents a coherent set of principles that can be used for deriving other factors and practices.

Exploring Business Transformation: The Challenges of Developing a Benefits Realization Capability

The successful management of change continues to be a major issue for organizations. This article draws on rich qualitative data to provide evidence of issues faced by organizations as they try to realize benefits from investments in IT-enabled change, and as they try to develop and enhance their benefits realization capability. Several of these issues are not effectively covered by previous research, for example managing the overall portfolio of change initiatives and how to develop the capacity of the organization for benefits realization. The research also provides empirical evidence that supports the theoretical propositions from dynamic capability theory that routines (practices) are often similar across different organizations, and that organizations go through a number of stages in developing competences. A further contribution of the research is to develop an enhanced model of an organizational competence, which has important implications for the action required to develop competences.

Exploring IT-enabled innovation: A new paradigm?

Abstract Innovation is a major strategic issue for many organizations. This paper reports on findings from 10 case studies of successful IT-enabled innovation covering a wide range of organizations and projects. They were carried out as an exploratory study to identify practices that contribute to innovation and specifically consider the implications of a focus on innovation for earlier work on benefits-led approaches to IT. The research identifies a number of practices from benefits-led approaches to IT that contribute to IT-enabled innovation. There is also evidence of organizations developing a new practice of ideation drawing on ‘crowd sourcing’ and exploiting social media technologies. Existing principles and practices for benefits realization can contribute to innovation, but the practices have to be applied in different ways according to the context. The overall conclusion emerging from the detailed analysis is that a focus on IT-enabled business innovation represents a new paradigm in terms of the mindset and approach involved. It amounts to a third IT paradigm, different from previous paradigms of technology implementation and a planned approach to benefits realization. Further work is required to explore this paradigm and how organizations can make the ‘paradigm shift’ required.

The role of IT competences in gaining value from e-business: An SME case study:

Many SMEs have been slow to exploit the potential of e-business. However, it can be difficult for any firm to gain value from e-business, and particularly so for SMEs that may lack important information technology (IT) competences. The study focused on one SME which had undertaken a series of e-business initiatives over a period of 10 years. The analysis revealed that the firm used e-business in two different ways: e-business for innovation, and e-business for integrating business processes. Four IT competences were found to be particularly important to the firm’s developments: IT leadership, business systems thinking, architecture planning, and making technology work. The study provides a detailed understanding of how the firm used e-business to gain value and how its IT competences influenced its e-business developments. The study also shows that a lack of competence in some areas inhibited the firm’s e-business developments.

Ensuring benefits realisation from ERP II: the CSF phasing model

Purpose – Delivering benefits from ERP II is challenging and the purpose of this paper is to investigate the allocation of resources contributing towards benefits realisation.Design/methodology/approach – A case‐study investigation was based on a five‐month placement within the project team of an organisation implementing ERP II. A critical success factors (CSF) phasing model was developed in order to categorise invested resources. Participant observations formed the first stage of the research and two years post implementation the observations were presented back to four key members of the project team to identify which invested resources contributed towards benefits realisation. Subsequently, the findings were presented to seven supplier organisations to validate the CSFs required to deliver benefits realisation from ERP II implementations.Findings – This research has identified 19 CSFs for ERP II, contributing an additional six to those already outlined in literature. A critical pathway for ERP II impl...

Delivering training for highly demanding information systems

Purpose – There is a lack of research covering the training requirements of organisations implementing highly demanding information systems (HDISs). The aim of this paper is to help in the understanding of appropriate training requirements for such systems.Design/methodology/approach – This research investigates the training delivery within a customer‐facing organisation that successfully implemented an HDIS. A case study was undertaken to identify resource allocation during the implementation lifecycle and training guidelines were prepared following in‐depth interviews with client and supplier consultant practitioners.Findings – Organisations implementing HDISs should invest in training throughout the implementation lifecycle. Two areas of training were found to be of importance: end‐user training to avoid technical‐isomorphism and post‐implementation training to avoid system atrophy.Practical implications – Literature shows that training attracts the smallest proportion of the implementation resources. ...

Building project management communities: exploring the contribution of patterns supported by web 2.0 technologies

This article describes an approach whereby patterns are used to describe management issues and solutions to be used during the project management of team-based software development. The work describes how web 2.0 technologies have been employed to support the use and development of such patterns. To evaluate the success of patterns and the technologies supporting their dissemination the work of 12 software development teams over 2 years is explored. The results of the research describe how students find access to the experiences of their predecessors useful to guide their actions and how they find patterns particularly useful as a way of expressing social issues concerned with the management of student groups.

The Challenges of Benefits Realization

This chapter provides insights from a wide-ranging exploratory study to understand how business and IT managers perceived the challenges they faced in building the benefits realization capability of the organization. It also provides an important context for exploring the action required to develop the benefits realization capability of an organization. Thanks to Julie Hodges: an extended and revised version of this chapter is found in Ashurst and Hodges (2011).

Insights into Current Adoption of Benefits-Driven Approaches

This chapter draws on 45 case studies to provide insights into the current adoption of benefits-driven approaches and to provide evidence of the value of the practices/competence approach. Thanks to Neil Doherty and Joe Peppard: an extended and revised version of this chapter is found in Ashurst et al.(2008).