Digital Identity

Which Projects Are Enterprise Projects?

Another question that IT departments frequently wrestle with is which projects and systems should be enterprise projects , built and operated for the good of multiple business units, and which are better built and operated by the business units themselves. Figure 20-1 shows a decision matrix I've found helpful for determining what activities and projects fall under the "enterprise" umbrella.

Figure 20-1. Enterprise decision matrix

The two axes in Figure 20-1 are strategic importance and the scope of an activity or project. Activities and projects farther along the horizontal axis more directly support the strategic goals of the organization, and activities and projects farther along the vertical axis are used by or affect more and more of the organization. Here are a few examples:

• A financial control system that is internal to the finance department, but directly supports the CEO's goal to curb capital spending, would place high on the "strategic importance" axis and low on the "breadth" axis.

• A directory project that supports an online directory of employees and eases creation of the company phone book would be placed high on the "breadth" axis, but may score low in strategic importance.

• A project to implement a new customer relationship management (CRM) system would place high on both the "breadth" and "strategic" axes.

The upper-right quadrant ...