Information Technology: Better Requirements Could Help the Company Implement Technology Projects More Effectively

Our objective for this report was to assess the effectiveness of the company’s efforts to identify the technology needs of its business departments and implement projects in response to those needs. We found that the company has implemented a process for more effectively identifying the business departments’ technology projects. Nevertheless, the company can do more to systemically gather and robustly define a project’s technology requirements. Three factors contributed to unclear or incomplete requirements. First, business department staff did not understand their responsibilities in working with IT to clearly define project requirements. Second, some project requirements were not clear or complete because the company did not resource projects with sufficient IT staff, business staff, or both. Third, some project requirements were incomplete because IT project teams did not include staff from the appropriate business departments to ensure that the requirements included all their needs. To improve the effectiveness of implementing technology projects, we recommend that the Chief Information Officer (CIO) clarify roles to ensure that staff assigned to these projects understand their responsibilities. We also recommend that the CIO coordinate with the business departments to develop a process to identify and plan for the company’s technology resource needs beyond the upcoming year. The company agreed with our recommendations and plans on taking corrective action.