Decision-making models applied to IT Project selection considering intangible assets

Abstract

How to identify the best IT project to invest in? Investing means spending resources with the intention of obtaining future benefits. Can this evaluation be done in a sustained way that minimizes the failure of a wrong choice and, therefore, some way to guarantee those benefits? This study intends to help answer these questions by building a decision-making tool, based on the existing multipurpose and adapting it to the reality of the IT Project Portfolio. The tool design is based on an in-depth analysis of IT projects, valuing their tangible and intangible characteristics to facilitate the organization’s management or decision-makers. Following an inductive thinking, the real decision making matrices shall be dissected to establish a future generalization in the form of a new tool to be applied to a specific scenario. A mixed strategy will be adopted (quantitative strategy to establish cause-effect relationships and qualitative strategy to understand the intangible factors associated with IT projects).