European Journal of Information Systems (2008) 17, 352-370
Improving the impact of IT development projects: the benefits realization capability model
Colin Ashurst, Neil F. Doherty and Joe Peppard

Neil Doherty and Colin Ashurst receiving their awards from Sue Merchant

The British Computer Society has estimated that 'the cost of failed IS/IT projects, in the UK alone, is many billions of pounds annually.  The cost of missed opportunities is probably a great deal more'.  Yet the study described in this paper has found 'no evidence of benefits realization practices being adopted in any consistent, comprehensive or coherent manner'. 

Thus, in seeking to explore how more systems development projects might result in the delivery of benefits rather than end in failure, this study has tackled a major issue. The research has produced a conceptual model of a benefits realization capability that has been rooted in a rigorous approach including both an analysis and synthesis of literature and an exploration of practice in 25 projects.  The resulting model has identified 4 distinct competences for Benefits Realization and has encouraged us to focus on wider issues than purely technological concerns.

In producing a paper that is accessible and valuable to practitioners and academics alike the Operational Research Society congratulates the authors, Colin Ashurst, Neil Doherty and Joe Peppard, on their being awarded with the Stafford Beer Medal 2008.

• 2008 - S Kien Sia, C Soh (citation available)
• 2007 - C Middleton, W Cukier (citation available)
• 2006 - S Madon (citation available)
• 2005 - S Sarker, S Sahay (citation available)
• 2004 - Rikard Lindgren, Dick Stenmark, Jan Ljungberg
• 2003 - JJ Jahng, H Jain, K Ramamurthy

1 Introduction

This award is named in memory of Stafford Beer, a world leader in the development of systems ideas, especially management cybernetics, and President of the OR Society 1970-71.

The Stafford Beer Medal is awarded in recognition of the most outstanding contribution to the philosophy, theory or practice of Information Systems and / or Knowledge Management published in the European Journal of Information Systems (EJIS) or Knowledge Management Research & Practice (KMRP) within the relevant year.

2 Eligibility

Only contributions to the preceding year’s volume of the relevant journals may be considered. Contributions having a member of the Awards Panel as an author are eligible; however that member should withdraw from the judging and subsequent decision. There are no other restrictions on the eligibility of authors. If an author has been awarded a Stafford Beer Medal on a previous occasion, this does not debar the contribution from consideration.

3 Award

The award shall consist of a medal, cast in bronze and suitably engraved, together with an appropriate citation. If the contribution selected for the award is the product of more than one author, then all authors will receive the appropriate award, but the citation will make clear that this is a shared award.

4 Entry

No entry is required. The Awards Panel will consider all eligible contributions as a matter of course.

5 Selection

The Stafford Beer Medal will be awarded to the contribution which in the judgement of the Awards Panel makes the most outstanding contribution to the philosophy, theory or practice of Information Systems and / or Knowledge Management. If the Awards Panel judges that none of the eligible contributions reaches a sufficiently high standard of excellence to merit the award of a Stafford Beer Medal, then no award shall be made.

6 Procedures

A reviewing sub-panel consisting of two or three members of the full Awards panel will be appointed. It is the responsibility of the reviewing sub-panel to scan all the issues of the relevant journals for the previous year, in order to make a recommendation to the Awards panel. The full Awards panel shall resolve any 'deadlock' in the rankings. The panel shall arrive at its final decision no later than 30th September. The Chair of the Awards Panel shall, no later than 10th October, forward to the Secretary & General Manager the name(s) of the winner(s), if any, and the citation. The Secretary & General Manager shall then inform the winner(s) and arrange for the award to be announced in Inside OR and for the medals to be made. The presentation of medals shall normally take place at the Blackett Lecture.

January: Allocate reviewing tasks to the members of reviewing sub-panel, who are each charged with producing, by 31st May, a shortlist of potential winners from the issues they have reviewed. The relevant editors will also be asked to submit a shortlist of 'worthy' papers.

June virtual meeting (via email): Initial shortlists from the reviewing sub-panel and the editors' recommendations are combined. If a member of the sub-panel has emerged as a short-listed author, they must be replaced at this stage. The members of the sub-panel review all the shortlisted papers and produce rankings by 31st August.

The following criteria are used:

• impact on the real world, including OR / IS community (actual impact)
• relevance to the real world (potential impact)
• degree of innovation
• quality of technical content
• quality of writing.

Each reviewing sub-panel member ranks each paper on a 1 – 5 scale under each criterion. The scores are aggregated to obtain an initial ranking, which is then discussed in order to arrive at a final ranking. If the discussions between the sub-panel members cannot be concluded satisfactorily, the debate is opened up to the full Awards panel. In order to help resolve disputes, referees' reports may be obtained for the relevant papers.

September meeting: The Awards panel reviews the rankings and determines a winner. A citation is prepared and forwarded to the Secretary & General Manager together with the name(s) of the winner(s) by 10th October. Secretary & General Manager orders medals for presentation at the Blackett Lecture.

It is current practice that announcements relating to the Stafford Beer Medal shall be published on the Society’s website as well as in Inside OR.