Future Investment Possibilities
By Marcel Noeverman
Previous version by Hajo van Ravenswaay
Based on the original version of Yelei Zhang
The use of this tool should result in a description of the future capabilities of the IS function to initiate new projects and to maintain high quality in the provided services (Salmela & Spil, 2003).
Information Collection | Seeking Alternatives | Prioritization of Possibilities | |
Goal | Understand the current situation and potential future changes. How does the business strategy match with current IS systems? | Find reasonable potential alternatives | Ranking of the potential alternatives based on an analysis of benefits, resources and risks |
Methods | Use already available information and for example a SWOT analysis | Questionnaires Methods stimulating the generation of creative ideas, e.g. brainstorming | Different methods are available |
Participants | Functional business management, IS management and users. Sometimes also senior management and consultants. | Functional business management, IS management and users | Functional business management, IS management and users. Sometimes also senior management and users. |
Result | Information about the current IS/IT recourses Trends in the industry | Proposals of IS projects that can solve the existing needs and contribute to the sustaining development of the business | A list of prioritized proposals |
Therefore, it is important to collect some information first. We need to know what the current situation is and also what will be important in future. Further, alternatives must be generated, for example by using one of the methods suggested in table 1. In the end these possibilities must be prioritized to be able to make a well thought decision. After the last step, the process starts again by the collection of information.
Tabel 1: Investigating future investment possibilities
Bibliography
Salmela, H. & Spil, A.A.M., (2003). Dynamic and emergent information systems strategy formulation and implementation. International Journal of Information Management 22, p45