Requests for new technology investments come up all the time. After all, we live in a world where technology is an underlying enabler for many aspects of business today. Leaders responsible for approving technology requests should keep business objectives and goals in mind each time a new request lands on their desk.
Investment requests typically come from one of two directions. First is the annual planning process. The annual plan vets the business merits of the big-ticket items; projects, upgrades, maintenance, and growth-related investments. Secondly are the ad-hoc requests. Ad-hoc needs pop up all the time, and typically are outside of the annual plan.
For those situations, asking five simple questions will allow you to quickly discern the merits and decide if it is worth pursuing.
If it does not satisfy one or more of these five, it’s time to push back on the requester and ask why should we spend time and money on this? As with all things, there are outliers, but by and large, this method will ensure projects and funding requests are consistently aligned to overall business objectives and goals.
Pretty simple and people at all levels will get it.
So, no matter how wonderful that next technology request looks, bear in mind that it is always about business.
