Caroline Weese Case Summary

In the case, Caroline Weese, the CIO of North American Financial, was in a bind with the head executives and it was her time to present to them her justification of the IT budget. The executives didn’t see the value in the IT investments after pouring millions of dollars into it, and was looking to Caroline to answer the problem. Caroline had great IT management that followed every standard that ensured IT processes were efficient, cost effective, and on par with industry regulations, but had no way to prove to the executives the rate of return on the investments. She admitted that it was IT’s responsibility to for the quality of work, its timely delivery, and its cost, but they are not responsible for monitoring which projects will deliver the most business value. She told the executives that they are going to have to work together to ensure that the business is investing in the right projects and delivering benefits. This resulted in the agreement on an IT
It was stated in the case that the total IT budget for new development work was allocated by business unit, which worked reasonably well at the business unit level but not for NAF as a whole. In prioritization meetings, leaders would argue for their own particular cause and focus on their own needs, not on NAF’s overall strategies. When designing the process, the IT investment committee should partner together and prioritize the projects based on the principles that were set by Caroline, Matt, and their team. The projects should be prioritized based on how close they are aligned with the enterprise’s strategies and the ROI of the project. They need to determine which projects are eating at the current IT budget and eliminate them to fix the application clutter. This would allow them to distinguish which ones do not need fixed and which ones need reviewed that could possibly reduce operating