11/4/2003 -- Earlier in the year, an article in the Harvard Business Review had IT executives very excited. With a title of "IT Doesn't Matter," you can imagine why this caught so much attention. What I'd like to do now is cover the main points of that article and suggest what this means for us working in this field.

Despite the attention-grabbing title, much of what was mentioned in the piece isn't news to us. We already know that the IT environment has changed drastically since the days of Y2K, the aftermath of the dotcom crash and 9/11. System availability has already been a key focus, and with the threat of a recession, so too has reductions in IT spending.

The main premise of the article is that since everyone now has IT, it can no longer be seen as strategic, in the same way that no one talks about strategic usage of electricity today. Instead, the main concern for managers today is over-spending in IT. It was suggested that this be done by:

(a) spending less by critically evaluating spending
(b) delaying investments until technologies are mature and standards are in place; and,
(c) managing availability risks.

Before we make ourselves depressed, keep in mind that this isn't saying that IT is worthless. To the contrary, it is so important to the modern organization that we need to plan to ensure its availability. But clearly, as we have seen over the past couple of years, the days of justifying IT expenditure without any detailed expected benefits are truly over and will never return.

What I found most surprising about the reactions to this piece was the emotional tone. I didn't see a lot of mention of any recent case studies or ROI (return on investment) figures for IT. Instead it was if someone had dared suggested that Santa Claus didn't exist.

You can be pretty sure that those that sign the checks in your company have probably either read this article or are aware of the issues raised within it. So it is in our interests to ensure that if this their current thinking about IT that we can work with them to achieve their goals. The focus on costs and availability are not new, but one interesting element is the mention of delaying technology expenditure until they are standardized or best practices emerge. This is poison for IT vendors, who thrive on having people deploying new technologies soon after release. Those embarking on early access programs or beta testing trials are going to have to work much harder to justify those expenses. The thinking in that article was that once these are in place, follower companies (who let the early adopters do all of the work and pay the project costs as well) can quickly leap frog over them and pay much less. Of course, this depends on someone actually doing this upfront work in the first place -- otherwise there will be no one to learn from!

So despite the hand-wringing from the IT industry, that HBR article has probably much of what we had already been experiencing. What it also does is create a frame of reference that we can use to discuss IT issue in the future. As practitioners we need to have some understanding of the likely thinking of decision-makers and also talk in their language in order to give us a better chance of having future IT spending requests approved. It can also help us understand priorities and start us thinking on how we can achieve them.

What do you think? Let me know your thoughts by adding your comments below.