Using Case Studies to Justify Changes in

IT Projects: Findings and Opinions According to Hopkins (2007), in the case of most IT projects and the case of most business projects in general, justifying an investment requires the demonstration of a mixture of immediate "savings, efficiency gains or the reuse of existing resources" and "simple forecasting methodology can then be used to calculate a potential return on investment (ROI) to determine a course of action." Forecasting methodology can often be extremely difficult to use in an accurate fashion regarding IT versus other types of projects.

The environment is constantly changing and a major investment in one project which seems to be valuable might be rapidly undercut by the revelation of another type of technology which presents an even better cost saving. No matter how great the potential financial savings in theory, "calculating the potential value of unknown information is similar to a prospector digging for gold" (Hopkins 2007). Yet such digging is still needed to remain effective and competitive within the business environment.

Breaking up a project into multiple steps can be useful as "the value delivered by each step would be used to fund each subsequent step" which means "the project could not continue if any step did not deliver value" (Hopkins 2007). However, as noted in the JW Consulting case, regardless of how the different stages are broken up, every proposed business solution can benefit from an "introduction to the problem and the proposed technology ..

a "business objective" the technology is supposed to address; a statement of "critical assumptions and constraints;" an "analysis of options and recommendations;" "preliminary project requirements;" an estimate of the budget and schedule; and also a risk analysis (Marchewka 2015). The issue of risk analysis is particularly critical given that a variety of projected scenarios must be laid out, with an explanation of how investing in this particular technology is the best choice and that it is equally functional for and supports a wide variety of such scenarios.

Flexibility is critical and the ability to break up a project into multiple steps ensures that it can be more sensitive to the changing needs of the marketplace and any unexpected occurrences which may arise during its duration. When each "step and phase" can demonstrate "positive value and added value" and minimize cost there is a greater likelihood that project will provide its promised benefits (Hopkins 2007). Project assumptions should be stated upfront and the "people, productivity and quality" levels needed along with potential objections to counter (Arnett 1999).

External as well as internal environmental scanning can show how the project may offer a potential advantage over likely competitors. Using concrete examples in the form of case study analysis is often more persuasive than facts and figures alone, particularly when making a presentation to management teams without extensive technological backgrounds. "Up-front cost is real, while return on investment is speculative" and "people with decision-making power are not necessarily expert in statistics, automation or production" regarding IT (Arnett 1999).

Additionally, change resistance is an inevitable obstacle with any type of proposed change, particularly one in relation to IT, which may be difficult to understand, complex.