Problems Addressed

Titanic was probably the best known maritime disaster of the 20th century, and ultimately one of the greatest project failures. With this context the book solves these six problems:

The first problem occurs when IT projects are not carefully evaluated for value and risk. The book highlights how business managers can better understand what is required to design, create, and support a project for putting operations online. The book highlights how to measure the uncertainty and risk of going on-line, determine the exposure, and then take appropriate actions to mitigate the risk. Hence, they can select the appropriate IT projects and then determine whether the IT department or service providers are capable of delivering these, the associated risks, and investments.
The second problem relates to the risks of doing business “on-line” through Intranets, Extranets, Internets, Portals, or other electronic channels, versus the more traditional channels. As an organization moves its operations on-line, through IT projects, it exposes the inner workings of the business operations to potentially millions of customers, partners, and suppliers around the world. In short, the importance of “24 by 7 availability”. If the business manager fails to provide adequate and highly responsive business services that are stable, withstanding the onslaught of weekly changes required, demanding customers will readily switch or “click” to a competitor. In fact, continuous business service availability is becoming a major competitive advantage.
The third problem is that organizations providing online operations are more vulnerable and seriously impacted by outages. These are horrendously expensive and highly visible because of the exposure of the Internet. The book highlights the difficulties in creating and maintaining continuous 24 by 7 business services. It outlines how the business manager can evaluate the organization’s ability to deliver business services, work out infrastructure weak points, and determine the pitfalls and costs in running a service continuously. It also outlines how to create a business case, based on potential outage costs, for going on line. It is important for the business manager to understand the investment requirements for business and availability before making any financial commitments.
The fourth problem is that IT investments in IT projects are usually apportioned first towards technology. Yet meeting customer service levels is only partially dependent on technology availability. The book highlights how senior business managers can determine whether their current IT investments have been successful and to what degree, and what future IT investments are required to meet their service goals.
The fifth problem is that the IT industry is notorious for its use of jargon and the over complication of technology. IT projects become too focused on IT rather than the business. The book provides the business manager the ability to challenge the IT organization with the right questions at the right stage in the IT project if they do not believe they are on track. As a consequence they can influence incremental investments. They also need to be able to review and understand various alternatives available at each stage.
The sixth problem is “misleading” service level metrics that make organizations think they are meeting customer expectations when in fact they are not. This provides a poor foundation for e-business. The book highlights how to collect and analyze service level metrics, and interpret availability reports. Senior business managers can rapidly determine which current business services are critical, and their actual service level measurements and performance.