Reading is not Optional!

I'll come back to this one and make comments when I've had a chance to absorb it. Although it is almost a decade old it appears to be a serious piece of academic research related to IT projects evaluated as options. If you want to understand capital allocation theory as it applies to Information Technology, this is a good place to start.

Are you a cost center or a contributor to profit?

This article makes the interesting point that if you're doing Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) summaries for your capital projects then you're being seen as a cost center ... and costs are meant to be cut. Now, if you're seen as a contributor to your organization's profitability then you should be preparing Return on Investment (ROI), Internal Rate of Return (IRR), or Economic Value Added (EVA) analyses of projects. These methods show the contribution of IT to the bottom line.

At some point I'll start developing the idea of options pricing as it relates to IT projects, which is an even more interesting way to demonstrate value.

Anyone want to send me books to review?

This looks interesting. Now all I have to do is figure out how to get on the book review list of the publishers.

The Basics

This is a good primer on the basics of capital allocation.

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/capital_allocation.asp