Benefits Management: Delivering Value from IS & IT Investments

Chapter 6. Stakeholder and Change Management

As has been emphasized throughout this book, IT, of itself, delivers few benefits. It is the complementary business and organizational changes that are made that produce the majority of benefits. Many studies have shown that it is organizational issues that either pre-date the project, or that arise during the project, which cause apparently available benefits not to be realized (see, for example, Doherty & King, 2001; Lederer and Nath, 1991). In the terms of the Soh and Markus (1995) model shown in Figure 1.5, it is having an effective use process, which ensures the changes needed to utilize the IT asset are carried out, that leads to improved business performance.

In the previous chapter the overall ability of the organization to manage the investment was considered an important component of risk analysis. However, it is the degree to which each of the specifically required changes can be accomplished that will determine the actual benefit set that is delivered. Not only is it necessary to understand the reasons why changes may be difficult to carry out, it is also important to adopt an approach to managing each change that deals effectively with the causes of problems as well as the effects. It is not the 'organization' that makes the changes. It is individuals and groups of people who have to change what they do or how they do it. These are normally known as 'stakeholders' in relation to a project or change programme and include the ...