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Jason Glazier, chief technology officer at Lincoln Financial Group Image Credit: Scott Nibauer

A few years ago, Lincoln Financial Group completed a project that was originally given the green light based on its ability to reduce head count within a particular department. The project, which resulted in customer service improvements and other benefits, was deemed a success -- that is, until Jason Glazier, chief technology officer at the firm, made an important discovery: No one had ever executed the layoffs.

Oversights like this highlight a major flaw in how projects are managed at many companies, Glazier says: the tendency to neglect important steps at the project's close that can make or break your ability to achieve a full return on investment. While lots of IT and business groups are all over ROI at a project's inception, it all too often slips off the radar as the project is winding down.

For instance, Glazier says, when projects are going through the approval stages, they are often given the go-ahead only when they can demonstrate a clear ROI. But as soon as they're under way, the focus switches completely to staying within budget, and few companies circle back to see if the original ROI expectations were achieved. As a result, it's all too possible for completed projects to appear to be successful based on adherence to schedules and budgets, as well as the delivery of benefits, even if they didn't meet the objectives that drove the original ROI case.

"At no point do you forecast whether you're still on track for your ROI, which means you might not achieve it," Glazier says, "especially if no one goes back and looks."

Lincoln Financial, a $4.6 billion diversified provider of life insurance, retirement products and wealth management services in Philadelphia, has since implemented a process so that all major projects include the step of verifying that the original assumptions were met, Glazier says.

Closing Steps

With the number of projects on many IT departments' plates, it might seem logical, even smart, to finish projects as quickly as possible, wash your hands of them and drive full-throttle toward the next one. "Demands are coming in quickly, and the tendency is, 'Get it done, meet the deadline, and move on to the new one,'" says Roger Agee, coordinating business systems manager at Jeld-Wen Inc., a door and window manufacturer in Klamath Falls, Ore.

It's true that many IT departments operate that way, but it's more important than ever to pay attention to a project's ROI, particularly as IT's attention turns from cutting costs to a new wave of innovation.