TUFS: An IT Project and Brief Analysis

TUFS Value Proposition

The Technical Underwriting Financial System (TUFS) (McKeen & Smith, 2012), like any Information Technology (IT) project requires a value assessment. This value assessment is intended to help business leaders weigh the possible benefits and risks

associated with the project. In the case of TUFS, some of the anticipated benefits included financial savings through improved efficiency and e-business capabilities. As noted in the case, the company had not made use of the e-business feature two years after it was released. This may point to an IT failure, but it may be as likely that a communication failure among those responsible for defining company strategy produced the unused feature.

The anticipated benefits represent expectations, which in this case don’t appear to have been clearly defined by IT or their business counterparts. It may be of more interest in this case to ask how the project fit into the company strategy. One reason this is important is that the expectations (benefits) mentioned are tactical in nature. In other words, improved efficiency and e-business may be good business tactics, but in the absence of a clear strategy, it’s difficult to say how these features would give the company an advantage.

External Investment and Commitment

IT projects require buy-in from stakeholders. There are several reasons to get buy-in before starting an IT project, some of which include investment during development and commitment to transition away from old processes to the new system upon completion. Unilateral IT projects often lack the level of investment and commitment required for a successful IT project. This becomes even more critical as the scope and size o...

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...rstand the capabilities and limitations of key technologies, the solutions they request are more likely to meet relevant needs.

Define Key Success Metrics First

A final observation from the case is that the postmortem discussion in which the CFO asked for the metrics that would determine success for future projects should have been discussed before the TUFS project began. A careful identification of pain points and deficiencies up front may even reveal quick and easy solutions that can be applied to existing systems. Even when quick solutions aren’t possible, this is a key step in establishing measurements for the execution of the IT project that will follow. Measurements must be able to quantify losses and gains.

References

McKeen, J. D., & Smith, H. A. (2012). It strategy issues and practices (second ed.).

Pearson.