InformationWeek
Defining The Business Value Of Technology
October 19, 1998
Secret CIO:
It's Good To Be The King
Any project that gets through the tortures of the funding process must have real commitment behind it
By Herbert W. Lovelace
henever I have to prepare an appropriation seeking money for a project, I get the feeling I'm
walking bareheaded under a flock of overfed pigeons.Sid Gornish, our CFO, is responsible for ensuring that the company's money is not wasted by spendthrifts in the organization-namely, everyone who has a budget, other than Sid. Helping in this vital task is a financial analyst who has been given the prestigious title of Director of Capital Expenditures. Jerry is, however, better known to the rest of us as the Appropriation King.
The company's capital appropriation process works sort of like this: Someone gets a bright idea that they think could either make us money or save us some. Enthused and made light-headed by their stroke of genius, they become willing to portage the perilous path of asking for money.
Their next step is to build support via earnest E-mails and hallway discussions with powerful people, so that the concept has a chance of being approved by the Executive Committee. Rarely are these pre-presentation negotiations skipped. After all, no one in their right mind would subject themselves to that group unless they were pretty sure their pet idea was going to get approved.
At the point the project appears to be a slam dunk for an OK, it becomes time to write an Appropriation Document-or AD, as it is called. Unfortunately, to get presented to the committee, the AD must follow a certain format and answer a set of standard questions about cost, benefits, alternatives, and risk. This is where Jerry comes into the picture. He is the keeper of the AD process and is accountable for making sure that all the questions are answered. In his own way, he is brilliant. He has taken an essentially clerical job and turned it into a throne of power that is awesome to behold. Valuable ideas have lain dormant for months or withered as he jealously insists that his procedures be followed to his satisfaction.
Regardless of how well-prepared an AD is, Jerry always has questions. Answering one leads to three more. This scenario is particularly frustrating when it's a technology project under scrutiny. Jerry doesn't really understand technology-indeed, he prides himself on that fact-so there is a certain Alice in Wonderland aura to our discussions as he asks why we need to spend money for an operating system if we are buying computers. For all I know, he makes us go through this huge amount of work on the assumption we would be willing to put that much sweat equity into an essentially useless piece of paper only for really valuable projects.
Actually, no one really reads what is written in the appropriation. Who would spend the time when they have either already made up their minds or will get what they need from the presentation to the committee?
The only end to his interrogatories is to scream that "enough is enough," and refuse to answer any more questions. Jerry is not dismayed at this response. On the off-chance that a committee member will ask something he has not thought of, he can then shrug his shoulders and say that the requester refused to supply needed information.
We really ought to include the cost (it must be immense) of the appropriation process in the Appropriation Document-but if we did, no one could cost-justify any project. The process-and the Appropriation King-are huge hurdles to vault. But on the bright side, they do have one real virtue: You'd better believe that any idea that actually gets through its torturous path has real commitment behind it. Otherwise, it would have died from fatigue and frustration along the way.
Herbert W. Lovelace is the CIO at a multibillion-dollar international company. Herb practices
his day job under an alias and has changed the names of colleagues to protect the guilty. Send him
E-mail at lovelace@home.com. He'll provide real
answers-and whimsical comments-to your questions on InformationWeek Online at www.informationweek.com.
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