An investigation into the principles for creating and evaluating effective business cases for complex IT investments

This study combines interviews and online Q-­‐sorting to investigate the principles for effectively creating and evaluating business cases for complex IT investments, such as enterprise information systems. Interviews with nine expert practitioners are analyzed to examine current practices and challenges with the process of creating and evaluating business cases for complex IT investments. An online Q-­‐sorting study using 19 expert practitioners is also analyzed to examine the relative importance of 32 principles for the effective creation and evaluation of business cases for complex IT investments. The findings indicate there are at least two different types of opinions on the most important principles for creating and evaluating the business cases. Furthermore, several principles that have not received much prior study were judged to be highly important such as the need to consider change management, strategic alignment, and the process of “socialization” of a business case for complex IT investments.