Demonstrate Results

I found it difficult to get my company to conduct post-implementation audits. A major reason is that these can't be done just by IT. They depend on a collaboration between IT and the user department; the cost savings can be identified only by the users. The best way to achieve this is to make post-implementation audits a best practice within your company (and ensure that top management requires them). Making post-implementation reviews a function of a third-party organization such as internal audit helps to encourage all parties to participate.

When I have been able to do it, it has achieved the desired effect of proving the business case. For example, when Ace implemented a data warehousing system, our CEO demanded that the user departments quantify the long-term benefits before he approved the project. Once the system was implemented, he required the major users to report quarterly to the executive officers what benefits they were realizing from the system. By holding users accountable for the results, this approach ensures that future cost/benefit analyses will be more accurate.

If we can get users to understand that they must engage in pre-system development and post-implementation audits, we will ensure a higher degree of successful system delivery and accountability for results. Only when our colleagues know what to expect from us, when they understand what we do, and when they trust we understand their needs, will we begin to change many of the stereotypes that have followed us from the early days of computing.

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