What is your IT doing?

When you begin to make decisions in regards to what your IT Department is doing, how do you answer this question?

There is of course the obvious solutions to this through IT steering committees, alignment with business strategy, and goals. But do you really know how to match what your IT Department does with where the business wants to go?

I pose a simple formula to compose the answer; ask five simple questions:

1. What is the reason for the investment/change? -this could be regulations, business goals, or growth
2. What are the objectives?
3. What are the benefits? -is something new obtained? does it improve some process? or does it eliminate an archaic, wasteful, or redundant process?
4. What are the costs? consider on going costs, and savings
5. What are the risks?

IT investments are key business decisions. IT has long passed the role of business support, and is woven into every fabric of the company. Considerations like the items above enables well built business cases for investment in a IT solutions.