“What to measure” and “How to measure” are well-known dilemmas for IT executives. The reality is that many IT projects are measured by criteria that are more closely aligned with completion rather than success—meaning IT is telling the business, “measure us by our adherence to the project plan rather than the benefits that the project provides to the organization.”  

Unsurprisingly, business managers are often left unsatisfied with the outcomes of IT initiatives when success is not easily measurable. 

Consider a Windows 10 migration. A sales director likely couldn’t care less about what flavor and version of an operating system runs on their laptop, but they might care a lot if their laptop performance slows down after IT “did something to it.” So, while IT might regard the Windows 10 migration project as a success once all devices in the project plan have been upgraded, end-users suffering performance degradation as a result of migration might have a very different take on the project’s “success.” 

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