Benefits-Led IT: Building the Organisational Capability

We are engaged in an action research project to develop university senior managers as leaders of IT-enabled transformation. The project aims to produce practical resources to help individuals and organisations as they seek to develop their transformation capability in an increasingly financially aware business environment. At this mid-point in the project we want to highlight three things: Firstly, the time is right for a focus on benefits realization. The general economic environment and the challenge to do more with less is an important factor. At Newcastle the foundation of good systems, skills and processes provides the basis for looking beyond technology delivery to benefits realization. Secondly, the agile and benefits-driven approach adopted by this research has been valuable. Finally, we have seen the value of people from different areas of the organisation working together using simple, but powerful tools