Review of "In Search of Business Value"
I just got finished reading the book they gave out at an awards dinner I attended recently. The book was co-authored by the keynote speaker, Bob McDowell.
This book mostly consists of interviews with business people on the business value of IT. The basic message I got was that IT projects should be owned and driven by business people and that it is important to carefully select and measure the IT projects that are undertaken. If this is done successfully, you can expect to gain value from your investments in IT. If not, your mileage may vary and you will probably end up wasting money.
Overall, it was a bit too much like the case studies I read in graduate school and I was a little bored. Not a lot of insights that were new to me, but it might be valuable reading to either techies who have no clue that business value matters or to business folks that have no clue that technology matters.