(From FAQ) I’ve heard a lot of talk about the Value Proposition of IT. What is it?

Value, at least economically speaking, is simply what you receive for what you are spending. In determining the value of IT services, depending on the business and the particular service, that value may have other dimensions than cost. The value proposition of IT depends on the services offered by IT, the measures of value articulated for these services by the business, how well IT is delivering against those measures and the weighting of that performance across services.

For example, I would suggest that for commodity services, where industry standard measures of service quality exist and may be benchmarked against, that the main dimension of value is cost at the standard service level. For delivery of business solutions or capabilities, the main dimension of value may be speed to implement (versus the most economical method), thus enabling a business advantage in time to market. For other services, quality may be the most important dimension of value to the business.

The business plays a key role in ensuring that the appropriate value proposition is defined and realized. IT can help frame the discussion, but it is the business that has to articulate the appropriate weightings for the dimensions of value. From that information, and agreed-upon measures, an objective scorecard may be built and maintained to determine how well IT is delivering against that value proposition.