How do you prioritize IT investments in a dynamic and uncertain environment?

Step 1 of prioritizing IT investments in a dynamic and uncertain environment is to identify and assess business objectives. This involves understanding the organization's overall strategy, goals, and objectives, and determining how technology investments can support them. To do this, it's important to engage with key stakeholders across the organization, including senior leadership, business unit managers, and IT leaders. Through these discussions, it's possible to identify the most critical business objectives and determine which ones can be supported through technology investments.

Start by evaluating your existing IT assets, systems and projects. Understand your enterprise architecture and performance, alignment with business goals, and any redundancies. If this does not exist, it is better to start a complete mapping of the value chain. And after that, you will be able to identify areas that need improvement or modernization.

Assessing your IT portfolio provides a comprehensive view of its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and risks, crucial for guiding investment decisions and optimizing resource allocation to meet business objectives. This involves compiling an inventory of assets and services, evaluating performance metrics, assessing value delivery to business goals, ensuring compliance with regulations, analyzing cost-benefit ratios, identifying project dependencies, aligning with strategic objectives, evaluating process maturity, managing risks, and gathering feedback from stakeholders.

This first step is so easy to overlook. Just as asset management continues to present a challenge to larger enterprises, technology portfolio management is also something that many organizations struggle to do well. It is imperative that you understand what technologies are in use in your environment, what those technologies are used for, what products/business units they support or enable, what capabilities they have, what the licensing looks like, what the support model looks like, pricing and renewal options, etc.

Defining IT goals and criteria is vital for prioritizing investments effectively. This process includes setting clear objectives aligned with the organization's vision and strategy. Key points to consider: - Alignment : Ensure IT goals align with overall vision and strategy. - Objectives : Clearly define outcomes aligned with business needs. - Metrics : Establish measurable success indicators. - Decision Criteria : Set standards for prioritizing investments. - SMART Goals : Ensure Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound objectives. Examples : ?Strategic Fit ?Business Value ?Risk ?Feasibility ?Sustainability

Clearly articulate your IT strategic objectives with the company strategy. Associate the objectives according to the balanced scorecard, to make sense and have a methodological justification. Consider factors such as cost reduction, revenue growth, customer experience and operational efficiency. Establish criteria to evaluate investment opportunities, renegotiations or renewals of contracts, or even ways to optimize contracts. These can include true ROI, strategic fit, risk and alignment with business priorities. Do not try to create goals that are not aligned with corporate expectations, as this will be a waste of time and will not be well regarded by executives.

Aligning technology goals with enterprise needs can be challenging for many organizations. COBIT 2019's goals cascade does a good job of tying stakeholder needs to enterprise goals, which are then supported by alignment goals and lower level objectives.

Analyzing and prioritizing IT opportunities involves systematically identifying and assessing projects to bridge the gap between your current and desired IT states. This enables focused resource allocation, optimizing your IT portfolio for business value and strategic alignment. - Align with strategic objectives; use brainstorming, interviews, and assessments. - Evaluate impact on IT and business; consider efficiency, revenue, risk. - Use defined criteria; assess strategic fit, value, risk, feasibility, sustainability. - Employ scoring models, decision matrices, cost-benefit analyses. - Prioritize based on impact and alignment; consider resources and risks. - Regularly review and refine; adapt to changing priorities and information.

Evaluate potential investments based on their impact and feasibility, do not try to fit costs into the annual budget that do not make sense for that market window. Consider the urgency of each opportunity and its alignment with the defined criteria, because only relevant projects and innovations will be remembered and moved forward. Don't waste time and money, as well as the teams' energy on projects that are not well studied and coherent with the business strategy. Prioritize projects that meet critical needs, have high return potential and align with your strategic objectives.Do the simple thing well.

In planning and executing your IT roadmap, several key steps ensure effective implementation. ?Define the scope, schedule, and budget lays out project objectives, timelines, and costs. ?Allocate resources effectively, including personnel and finances, is crucial. ?Establish a governance structure with defined roles ensures oversight. ?Implement monitoring and control mechanisms, like dashboards, tracks progress. ?Transparent communication with stakeholders gathers feedback. ?Manage risks involves identifying and mitigating potential issues. ?Continuous evaluation ensures benefits realization aligns with organizational goals. These steps collectively optimize IT investment implementation for organizational success.

Develop a roadmap that describes the sequence of IT initiatives already approved by the company's Executive Committee and the Project Portfolio Committee. Prioritize projects based on dependencies, resource availability and business impact, create this schedule and present to committees to ensure correct and best sponsorship throughout all deliveries. Allocate resources effectively and ensure cross-functional collaboration, keep all interested parties well communicated about any changes in scope, impacts, and need to reset deadlines. Regularly review and adjust the script as needed to adapt to changing circumstances, but never forget to get approval from everyone involved.

Regularly reviewing and updating your IT portfolio ensures alignment with evolving business needs and technological advancements, maintaining competitiveness and enabling long-term success. ?Measurement and Evaluation : Assess performance, value, and alignment. ?Identification of Issues and Gaps : Identify areas for improvement. ?Addressing Issues and Changes : Take proactive steps to resolve issues. ?Adaptation to Changing Environment : Stay informed and adjust to new trends. ?Regular Reviews and Updates : Establish a cadence for updates. ?Optimization and Alignment : Ensure alignment with strategic objectives. ?Continuous Improvement : Foster a culture of ongoing enhancement.

In my experience, this is an area that often loses momentum. It is easy for leaders to plant a seed and start watering, the challenge becomes persistence, mindfulness, and maintenance to keep the plant thriving. My suggestion is to build a team of passionate, driven, and accountable individuals that get excited about seeing results. Outside of KPIs and other tools, schedule recurring meetings and round-robin facilitation to keep the conversation going. Take notes and send out action items to keep momentum and accountability. These soft skills, however small, make the biggest difference in maintaining sight of the mission and goals.

Continuously monitor the performance of ongoing projects, maintain a weekly status update schedule at a minimum. Evaluate whether they meet expectations and adjust as necessary. Be agile in responding to market changes, technological advances and emerging risks. Therefore, it is necessary to have champions on your team, experts capable of designing the best solution and proposing the best implementation paths, trust the experts and not be afraid to change decisions and take a new approach. direction for the projects. Regularly review your IT investment strategy, don't make budgets based on 'guesstimate', try to use as much official information as possible to determine the correct cost and return.

When prioritizing IT investments, it is good to start with understanding what the business needs, a process known as "Demand Management." Then, in the "Project Portfolio Intake" stage, we decide which IT projects are most important. I have personally utilized the "Big Rocks" model for prioritization. This model is like filling a jar: you put the big rocks (major projects) in first to make sure they fit. This means focusing on the biggest and most important IT projects that match our business goals. It helps us handle risks efficiently, choose IT solutions that are agile, and make sure we're spending money wisely.