Internet Technology Planning for Decision Makers
Brian Moran, Director of IT Services
U.S. International Trade Commission
June 21, 2007

Agenda
• Process for evaluating new internet technologies
• Examples:
– A failure
– Successes
Page 2

Evaluating internet technology investments
Page 3

Page 4

Capital Planning and Investment
Control
• Need is determined
• Rudimentary business case is developed
• Funding is allocated for evaluation and business case development
• Business case, including Cost-Benefit Analysis and Risk Assessment
• Case is evaluated by Investment Review Board
• Budget is awarded or denied and project begins, ends or remains in limbo
Page 5

Examples
Page 6

Failure » Electronic Document
Information System II (EDIS II)
• Failed to analyze the technology’s trajectory
• The technology was not a single or limited service
but rather an uber-system
• The project was released with the single throw of
the knife switch
Page 7

Success » Electronic Document
Information System III (EDIS III)
• Moved to service components
• Evaluated each technology
• Tested each technology before buying into it
• Incrementally rolled out functionality
Page 8

Success » Wiki
• Tested use within App Dev group
• Expanded to other IT departments
• Offered use to limited number of projects outside of
the IT organization
• Rolled out to the enterprise
Page 9

Lessons Learned
Page 10

There are other things to consider
with leading and cutting edge
investments
• Goal:
– Limit investments in new technologies that become
obsolete (flash in the pan)
• Techniques:
– Determine investment’s trajectory
• Don’t limit your analysis to ROI and IRR
• Forecast the investment’s long term viability
– Seek service technologies rather than all-in-one
appliances
– Test the waters
Page 11

Analyze the investment’s trajectory
• Is the technology bleeding, leading or cutting edge?
• Determine market penetration/adoption and velocity
of adoption
• Is the technology open or closed?
• Does it integrate with other existent technologies?
• Is the technology dependant upon other
technologies or languages that are on the tail end
of the hype cycle?
Page 12

Seek service technologies
• Does the technology perform a single or limited
number of services well?
• Is the product SOA compliant out of the box or
does it lend itself to SOA?
• Can the service satisfy more than one major
requirement?
Page 13

Test the waters
• Small scale deployments and limited test cases
• Allow it stabilize before complete adoption
• Use evaluation copies of technologies
Page 14

Thank You!