How to Deal with Differing Views of Resource Efficiency when Carrying Out Digitalization Projects

Abstract

Having project goals that are shared among project members are preconditions for resource efficient as well effective projects and operations. However, specifying and communicating project goals require an ability to identify goals that are indeed commonly shared. Rapid technological developments may require digitalization projects that lead to large portions of existing company staff being redundant, making it possible to assume that the quest of finding a commonly shared view of what is ‘resource-efficient’ will be increasingly challenging. Development of methods to specify project goals that are incentivizing for all project members and staff can hence be assumed to be important. One step in developing improved specification methods is to ask how the process to specify desired value from digitalization projects handles possible disagreements of what is ‘desired value’. The purpose of this study was to answer this question. We analyzed several digitalization projects, and how specifications of desired project results impacted project outcomes. We found that potential disagreements regarding desirable project outcomes generally are avoided by avoiding specification of what a desirable resource efficiency outcome is, and how actual project outcomes should be measured. However, we also found that this practice also led to unsatisfying project outcomes regarding resource-efficiency improvements, and that improved methods to specify desired value from digitalization projects should be developed. Our findings support earlier findings that the general failure rate of digitalization projects is high, often due to insufficient specification of desired projects outcomes before the projects are initiated. Our findings contribute to the understanding that despite this, there are also perceived benefits of spending limited resources on specification of desired outcomes. If attempts to improve the success rate of digitalization projects by improving specifications of desired project outcomes is to succeed, these perceived benefits must be considered.