Issues of Adopting Benefits Management Practices of IT Investments in Municipalities: A Delphi Study in Norway

TLDR

Benefits management emphasizes explicit practices to realize benefits from IT investments, extending beyond traditional project management focused on IS deliverables. This study reports preliminary Delphi results aimed at identifying critical issues that facilitate the adoption of benefits‑management practices in Norwegian municipalities. Three expert panels—representing central government, municipal top management, and municipal middle managers—were convened to examine these issues. Panelists identified 59 issues, highlighted the most important ones for further discussion, confirmed and extended prior findings, and laid the groundwork for future research on optimal IT benefits‑management practices in municipalities.

Abstract

The concept of benefits management highlights explicit practices to facilitate benefits realization from information technology (IT) investments, in addition to plain project management focusing on information systems (IS) deliverables as such. This article presents preliminary results from a Delphi study of identifying critical issues to facilitate adoption of benefits management practices in Norwegian municipalities. Three expert panels were established, representing three stakeholder groups within the domain of managing municipal IT investments: the viewpoint of central government, municipal top management, and municipal middle managers responsible for particular municipal services and domains. The experts of the Delphi panels suggested 59 issues and identified the most important ones for further scrutiny and discussion. The results both confirm and complement previous suggestions concerning adoption of benefits management in organizations. Moreover, the results provide a basis for further research on the "best" (or satisfactory) practices of IT benefits management in municipalities