In today’s fast-paced business environment, building successful IT initiatives and projects requires more than just ticking off tasks; it demands a strategic approach tied directly to tangible business outcomes. Whether through direct impact or by freeing up critical IT resources, defining success in clear, measurable terms is crucial. Understanding the role of ROI in cost reduction, setting and communicating key metrics, and learning from retrospectives can transform existing and future projects, ensuring sustained success and continuous improvement.
Defining a Successful Initiative
Not all IT projects have a direct business impact, but they still provide value. Projects can deliver strategic benefits, such as freeing up resources, reducing technical debt, or supporting infrastructure, which justify their existence. According to CIO Martin Davis, projects offer a variety of benefits and impacts: “Some are very tangible — business or IT — while others may be more strategic; sometimes the purpose might be to remove roadblocks that impact other projects.” Dion Hinchcliffe, VP of CIO Practice at The Futurum Group, adds that while most IT initiatives and projects should have a business impact, some are overhead, infrastructure, enterprise architecture, or learning projects with only indirect impact. “But if indirect impact is major, credit should be taken,” he notes.
That said, successful initiatives have clear purposes, whether driving digital transformation or removing roadblocks to future progress. Anthony McMahon, CIO of New Zealand’s Fractional, observes, “A portion of IT projects, such as a network refresh or server upgrade, will not have direct business impact, but they still need to happen. Business impact is a significant driver in projects but not always the number one.” For this reason, FIRST CIO Deb Gildersleeve contends that “regardless of goals, every successful initiative or project has a concrete, identified impact, whether for the business or for IT. Freeing up IT resources can be a justification within that identified impact.”
IT Cost Reduction as a Goal
While CIOs acknowledge that not all IT projects have a direct business impact, they emphasize that this does not diminish their value. As stated, these projects justify their existence by delivering strategic benefits such as resource optimization, technical debt reduction, and infrastructure support.
According to Davis, “[This] is also true for business projects. Projects have positive ROI and reduce resources, but organizations are doing too much with too few, and the ROI is swallowed by people actually being freed up to do the jobs they are supposed to do ... adds value all the same.” Hinchcliffe states, “This is where the CIO earns their dollars. This is a juggling act, and it is often difficult to justify the determination of outsourcing, automation, or otherwise switching to far cheaper tech/labor. There's often a human cost.” Gildersleeve adds: “Shifting resources is the thing nobody ever really wants to talk about or be held accountable for. If a more impactful project with its own ROI can be done with the freed-up IT resources or cost, that can be part of the ROI.”
Impact of Metrics & KPIs
Successful projects have clear, concrete metrics or KPIs to define success, ensuring alignment and avoiding misunderstandings. While not all projects can be quantified strictly in terms of KPIs or ROI, every project should have defined success criteria, whether they’re related to value contribution, quality, or strategic goals. The whole team must understand these metrics so it can make informed decisions and contribute to the project’s success.
Davis puts it this way: “Any project should have a concrete definition of success; otherwise, how do you know if you have succeeded? Not defining the metrics up front leads to disagreement later; in the worst case, IT says the project succeeded, but the business views it as a failure.” Hinchcliffe agrees: “The more successful an IT project, the better the metrics/KPIs usually used. Poor performers tend to have little to no metrics. They often run into trouble quickly by having little measure of ground truth. You can’t manage what you don’t measure.” McMahon adds: “Metrics are not an iron triangle. Time, cost, and quality are all nice indicators of the likelihood of success, but not a measure of success themselves. Metrics should be more tangible on what the project is trying to achieve.”
Importance of Retrospectives
CIOs believe that post-project retrospectives significantly increase the odds of future project success if they are conducted with the right mindset. “If they are done well, they do, and by that, I mean the team has an understanding that retrospectives aren’t meant to assign blame but to learn. People must be comfortable sharing both wins and teachable moments,” says Gildersleeve.
Retrospectives should focus on learning rather than assigning blame, creating an environment where team members feel comfortable sharing both successes and challenges. However, for retrospectives to be truly effective, they must not be treated as mere formalities. The lessons learned should be actively integrated into the organization’s project processes, ensuring continuous improvement. Retrospectives should be facilitated by someone impartial to the project to ensure objective reflection and honest feedback. McMahon argues that “retrospective should not be treated as a box-ticking exercise. This means the lessons are captured and the project process at the organization is adapted from them. I'll also doubt any retrospective that is run by the PM who delivered the project.”
Parting Thoughts
As discussed in this Advisor, it is important to evaluate IT projects and initiatives, particularly in terms of metrics, KPIs, business impact, and post-project retrospectives. But not all IT projects have direct, measurable business impacts; some provide strategic value or address technical debt. Successful projects, nevertheless, should have clear metrics or KPIs to define success, and it’s crucial that the entire team understands these to guide decision-making. Additionally, post-project retrospectives are valuable for future success, provided they are conducted with a focus on learning and improvement, rather than blame, and that the insights gained are implemented in future processes.
