In “Making Technology Investments Profitable”, management consultant Jack Keen diagnoses and treats business and IT leaders that expect value but let it slip away. “On-value” is the essential companion to “on-time” and “on-budget”. Too often, leaders choose inferior investments, assume that on-time and on-budget programs1 are also on-value, and are forced to shut down programs after they disrupt or disappoint their intended beneficiaries.

1. that are important when we extrapolate, as we are so
often tempted to do, from the former to the latter.
In closing, I note that there is one other connection
between enterprise architecture and managing as
designing, namely the growing attention paid to
enterprise architecture as an analytic and decision
support tool. While this may help increase its perceived
value and thus its appeal to the management
community, we have to be careful not to lose sight of the
fact that enterprise architecture is primarily, to use the
words of the book’s editors, a “design attitude”, and as
such is inherently at least as much a synthetic as an
analytic discipline.
My thanks to Bill Brierly for bringing this important book
to my attention.
Len Fehskens is the Vice President, Skills and Capabilities for
The Open Group. He is responsible for The Open Group's
activities relating to the professionalization of the discipline of
enterprise architecture.
Making Technology Investments
Profitable: ROI Roadmap from
Business Case to Value Realization,
Second Edition
Jack M. Keen
REVIEW BY IVER BAND
And the user exclaimed with a snarl and a taunt, “It's just what I
asked for, but not what I want!”
So goes the final stanza of “‘Twas the Nite Before
Implementation”, a decades-old IT parody of Clement
Clark Moore’s “A Visit From St. Nicholas”. And so go
many IT-enabled investments, from which the expected
return mysteriously dissipates despite considerable
diligence and expenditure.
In “Making Technology Investments Profitable”,
management consultant Jack Keen diagnoses and treats
business and IT leaders that expect value but let it slip
away. “On-value” is the essential companion to “on-time”
and “on-budget”. Too often, leaders choose inferior
investments, assume that on-time and on-budget
programs1 are also on-value, and are forced to shut
down programs after they disrupt or disappoint their
intended beneficiaries.
Keen’s approach begins with auditing value practices
and orienting management towards value definition,
accountability, and realization. It continues with
instructions for business case development (Figure 1)
1 The word “project” can be substituted for program throughout this
review.
and evaluation. These processes should address both
tangible and intangible benefits as well as risks. The
benefits that organizations are most likely to consider
tangible have five elements, including a premise, a clear
cause and effect relationship to value, mathematical
formulas, metrics that can be converted to financial
impacts, and proof of the other four elements.
Intangibles likely have only the first few of these
elements, but the book demonstrates a number of
techniques for converting intangibles to tangibles.
Successful business case development, however,
requires much more than analytical skills.
Development teams must have members ready to play
the roles of project manager, reporter, politician,
salesperson, analyst, detective, and attorney. These
teams should pay particular attention to the types of
benefits and language that will resonate with the most
influential stakeholders. They should place direct system
benefits on the bottom rungs of a “value ladder” and
tailor the top rungs to the manager of the primary
decision-maker. Therefore, the value ladder must
connect a series of increasingly broad benefits such as
improved user speed and accuracy, increased customer
satisfaction, increased customer retention and referrals,
and finally increased revenue and profit.
With well-justified, strategically, and politically aligned
benefits woven into a compelling story of value, a
business case has the greatest possible chance to
attract funding.
However, “money magnet” is only the first of several
crucial business case roles. After program launch, the
business case should become the beacon that keeps the
program on-value and a tool to measure its progress
(Figure 2). During implementation, program leaders
should use the business case to encourage and guide
the team and its executive patrons. Each system and
process designer, for example, should be familiar with
the value of the components they work on as promised
in the business case. After implementation, program
leaders should use the business case to track the
progress of value realization,
In keeping with its subject matter, “Making Technology
Investments Profitable” is designed to be implemented
right away, in whole or in part. The prose is engaging
and well-organized and each chapter is a compact toolkit
for evaluating or improving particular value practices.
The book is replete with case studies, lists, exhibits,
forms, graphical tools, and step-by-step instructions. A
realistic scenario extends throughout the book, and the
appendix gathers together its components into a
complete business case.
Enterprise architects can use “Making Technology
Investments Profitable” to better align architectures and
roadmaps with business intent, prioritize competing
58 © Journal of Enterprise Architecture – August 2011

2. investments, and guide system and process design. This
book is ideal for all IT architects, program managers,
executives, and others intent on fulfilling the promise of
information technology.
Figure 1: The Business Case Development Process1
Figure 2: The Roles (Functions) Performed by a Business Case and its Advocates throughout the Lifecycle of an IT-Enabled
Investment
1 The illustrations in this review are based on the book and modeled in ArchiMate® by the reviewer.
© Journal of Enterprise Architecture – August 2011 59