Matching an IT Project with an appropriate method of evaluation: a research note on ‘Evaluating Investments in IT’

Abstract

This note addresses the problem of choosing an appropriate method when evaluating an IT investment as set out in a previous work. The problem arises immediately because there are many methods on offer for performing the evaluation and a great number of different situations in which those methods could be applied. There is thus a problem of matching the method to the situation across many dimensions. In the previous paper the authors spelled out some of these dimensions on the basis of empirical work and proposed a matching method derived by trial and error which had, at the time, no theoretical foundations. Further research has suggested a possible rationale and it is that which is presented here, together with a further dimension on which the matching may be carried through.