ABSTRACT
This chapter sets the scene for the rest of the book. Our goal is to introduce a view of IT from the perspective of the businesses that use it. Further, this chapter seeks to make current IT best practices accessible and understandable to business managers. Too often, IT projects and operations fail because business expectations for them are unrealistically high based on ignorance of what can be achieved in a given time at a given quality and budget. Also, too often, IT Providers’ deliverables in a given time at a given quality and budget are unrealistically low. This is based on IT Providers’ ignorance of (or disregard for) what can be achieved by combining a clearly prioritized set of business needs with well-established, but woefully underutilized, IT industry best practices. This chapter seeks to provide an overview of those industry best practices that businesses should expect in the hope that their expectations will become more realistic and, at the same time, the accountability of IT Providers will improve.
