For example, standardizing workstation configurations reduces the cost of maintenance and training. Although the investment appears necessary and prudent, the action has little direct bearing on the business. Therefore, to maximize the performance of IT investments, favor those projects that provide the greatest impact on the performance of the business domain. Information Economics provides the means to analyze and select IT investments that contribute to organizational performance based upon business value and risk to the organization. This is done using the following business and technology domain factors.
Agencies select the domain factors that reflect their business priorities.
Information Economics examines the cost and value that IT contributes to the business and technology domains separately. This provides a more accurate assessment of the impact of an IT investment to the organization. Using Information Economics tools means the business domain determines the relative importance of the domain factors. Agencies can obtain consensus within the business domain by establishing an Investment Review Board with the major stakeholders identified in Step 1 as the members. The IRB determines the importance of the factors and assigns weights between one and ten to each factor.