Investment shortlist
- First: Consolidate three finance tools into one.
- Sensitive to: Business value (counted half as much).
Executive Intelligence · Technology and Innovation
Technology Investment Advisor
A technology portfolio with cost, owner, use and value evidence.
Demonstration: Aldercroft Facilities Services (fictional) · Facilities management. Fictional data and a scripted answer.
The situation
- Organisation
- Aldercroft Facilities Services (fictional)
- Who is asking
- Chief information officer
- Industry
- Facilities management
- What happened
- Five technology investments are on the table and the budget covers two.
The question asked
Which technology investments should we fund this year?
What it reads, and who can see the result
- Investment cases documentEach proposal's costs and benefits.
- Architecture principles documentWhat the company wants its technology to be.
- Reads
- The cases and the principles.
- Does not read
- Vendor pricing detail.
- Permission
- CIO office access.
- Who sees it
- The CIO and the executive committee.
Try it
Change how much each criterion matters. The ranking is recomputed, and the page tells you whether the leader would survive a different judgement.
- 1Consolidate three finance tools into oneModest value; simple.Business value: 3Low delivery risk: 4Fit with the architecture: 5Quick to benefit: 43.85
- 2Upgrade the office networkNecessary; low visibility.Business value: 2Low delivery risk: 5Fit with the architecture: 4Quick to benefit: 53.75
- 3Replace the field-service scheduling systemLarge value; large project.Business value: 5Low delivery risk: 2Fit with the architecture: 4Quick to benefit: 23.45
- 4Mobile app for cleaners and engineersPopular; depends on scheduling.Business value: 4Low delivery risk: 3Fit with the architecture: 3Quick to benefit: 33.35
- 5Data platform for reportingFoundation; slow to show value.Business value: 4Low delivery risk: 3Fit with the architecture: 5Quick to benefit: 13.35
The leader would change if Business value (counted half as much). Treat the order as sensitive to that judgement.
Leader's margin over the next option: 0.10. The leader can change under another weighting.
The answer
Simulated answer. Written for this fictional case, not produced by a live model. Only the figures in it are computed, from what you decided above.
With these weights the investment to fund first is: Consolidate three finance tools into one (score 3.85).
The five cases are scored on value, delivery risk, fit and speed, against the architecture principles [S1][S2]. The order is could change under the weightings tested; it would change if Business value (counted half as much).
The mobile app and the scheduling system depend on each other, which the scores cannot show. The executive committee should fund them as one decision or not at all.
Relies on: S1 · Investment casesS2 · Architecture principles
Review and approval
The chief information officer decides. Approving sends the shortlist to the committee for funding decisions. It does not commit budget.
Ready for the reviewer.
In the product this is a different person with the right permission. Here you play that role to see the rule.
What it produces
Limits of this example
- Scores are judgements from the cases.
- Dependencies between investments are outside the scoring.
- This is a scripted demonstration on fictional data. No model was called and no real organisation, person or result is shown.
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