The poor application of Information Technology really is like a worldwide bonfire that sizzles away and regularly explodes in our faces, year after year. So why do we keep feeding IT initiatives with such huge amounts of cash and effort when disappointment and unexpected cost are still the most likely outcomes? 

More than twenty years ago the so-called “productivity paradox” of disappointing return on IT investment was identified but it has only got worse since then.  The worldwide market in IT goods and services is now approaching 4 trillions of dollars per annum, with research showing consistently high levels of failure to achieve anticipated results.

The term “productivity paradox” massively understates the scale of the problem so I have chosen a new term: The Trillion Dollar Bonfire  to describe how we collectively burn trillions of unnecessary dollars on wasted IT investment - every year.

The problems won’t go away until we stop focusing narrowly on IT and start investing our energy and resources into properly joined-up Information Systems, which incorporate effective combinations of people, process, organisation and technology.

Those entrusted with an organization’s systems should be duty bound to do everything possible to protect stakeholders by extinguishing the Trillion Dollar Bonfire as quickly as possible. If we do not, then the expensive IT initiatives will continue to fail as an inevitable consequence of answering the wrong questions and fighting the wrong battles.  

The first step in finding better solutions is to begin by asking better questions.