Evaluating Information Technology Projects in Finland: Procedures, Follow-Through, Decision-Making and Perceived Evaluation Quality

Here we investigate the evaluation of information technology (IT) projects to determine when firms evaluate IT and what the effects are on decisions made about the projects. We study evaluation over the IT project life cycle among a sample of the largest firms in Finland from a variety of industries. We also investigate the use of procedures that are explicitly designed to evaluate IT projects and whether such procedures are associated with evaluation follow-through over the life of the project, managerial decision making, and perceptions of evaluation quality. Firms in the sample seldom evaluate IT investments after the initial project proposal and when they do the evaluation seldom results in substantial system modifications or abandonment. Explicit IT evaluation methods are associated with higher levels of evaluation follow-through during development, with a greater likelihood that managers will make a decision to abandon a project, and with higher levels of some measures of perceived evaluation quality.