Chapter 11. Measuring Success

There is a small plaque that is on the wall in our kitchen. It reads, "When Mom ain't Happy, ain't Nobody Happy." Perhaps the plaque exhibits poor grammar, but it very succinctly communicates a message. The IT version of that plaque would read, "If the User isn't Happy, then Nobody is Happy." Going beyond this superficial cliché, understanding who "Mom" is in an IT context and that "happiness" is dynamic and can change at the click of a mouse is essential to being completely successful in constructing and implementing an enterprise ISD capability.

There are a myriad of techniques used to measure success: the balanced score approach described in an earlier chapter, the critical success factor approach, TQM, capability maturity model levels, and many others. The question to be asked is not what tool to use to measure success, but rather, how do you define success and who is the final arbiter of when success has been achieved?