Dec 19 2008
Doing the wrong thing right is better than doing the right thing wrong
During his lightning talk on the requirements trap at XP Day 08, Allan Kelly presented the results of a Bain Consulting research which looked into the effectiveness of IT, alignment with business goals and the effects of those two factors on sales and IT spending.
Based on whether the IT is doing the right thing (aligned with business goals) and whether it is doing it right (effective), the researchers divided the companies in four groups:
The figures in the picture are comparing to the average and over three years – so, for example, the group that has IT aligned with the business but not effective has 14% less sales growth than the average of all surveyed companies, but they spend 13% more than the average on the IT. On another hand, the group that has a mismatch in what IT does and what the business wants, but with effective IT, spends 15% less on IT then average but sees 11% more sales growth than the average over three years.
A very important note from Allan’s talk is that the transition from the top-left corner into the top-right corner is virtually impossible, unlike the transition from the bottom right corner into the top-right corner. Doing the wrong thing but doing it right turns out to be better than doing the right thing poorly.
For more information, see Allan Kelly’s post on this topic.
See other articles about Xp Day 08
 |
 |
Are you implying there’s a causal relationship between IT alignment/effectiveness and sales/spend?
It seems to me that a company that cannot get IT aligned with what they need or claim that IT is ineffective might have systemic problems.
Does it make sense that the business is smart at everything except IT? I think it’s more likely that the business is less effective across the board.
What are your thoughts?
Hi Jason,
I’m not implying anything, I just wrote a write-up of Kelly’s presentation. You can try to get in touch with him to discuss this further.