Question 1. Executives stress that they want and need IT improvements that will help their organizations be more competitive and profitable. They are eager to sponsor IT acquisition projects that they believe will help them improve the return on investment in their areas and perhaps gain a competitive advantage. While executives continue to sponsor such IT systems, they nevertheless also complain about the growing complexity of these systems. Some executives say they don't use some systems? or use only some of their capabilities? because they are too complicated to understand and use. Others complain that the new systems place unexpected, burdensome demands on them. Business intelligence systems, for example, can provide managers with valuable decision information, but they require that managers first agree on the underlying metrics (performance measures), including the data to be captured, the method of data analysis, and what constitutes "good" and "not good" results. As another example, IT research firms point out that many organizations have implemented IT portfolio management systems but very few come close to using the full capabilities or potential of such systems.

Your Question: You are a consultant brought in by the executive committee to make recommendations for alleviating the "IT complexity" concerns of the executives at the company. The executive committee explains that there are growing levels of complexity of the state-of-the-art IT systems the company has been implementing to remain competitive. Your recommendations should take into account the desire of executives to sponsor such systems to improve ROI and achieve other objectives, though they have increasing concerns with the complexity. Your recommendations to solve the problem need to be practical in terms of the demands placed on executives, the demands placed on the IT support staff and others, and the cost of implementing your recommendations.