Improving Business Value Assurance in Large-Scale IT Projects—A Quantitative Method Based on Founded Requirements Assessment

Abstract

The probability of IT project failures can be mitigated more successfully when discovered early. To support a more insightful management of IT projects, which may also facilitate an early detection of IT project failures, transparency regarding a project's cash flows shall be increased. Therefore, an appropriate analysis of a project's benefits, costs, requirements, their respective risks and interdependencies is inevitable. However, to date, in requirements engineering only few methods exist that appropriately consider these factors when estimating the ex ante project business case. Furthermore, empirical studies reveal that a lot of risk factors emerge during the runtime of projects why the ex ante valuation of IT projects even with respect to requirements seems insufficient. Therefore, using the Action Design Research approach, we design, apply, and evaluate a practicable method for value-based continuous IT project steering especially for large-scale IT projects.