Is it Worth the Effort?

Abstract

The adequate consideration of resource interactions among IS projects is a challenging but important requirement within IS project portfolio selection. However, the literature does not mention any potential techniques for the identification and assessment of resource interactions. Moreover, the literature has so far neglected the question of the trade-off between time and effort invested in identifying and evaluating resource interactions caused by resource sharing among projects, compared to the benefits derived from this procedure. Hence, the paper’s contribution is twofold. First, a technique to support the identification and evaluation of potentially economically relevant resource interactions is suggested. Second, the paper proposes a decision model that allows to calculate a theoretical upper bound for the amount of effort that should be invested in improving estimates for identified interactions as part of the portfolio planning process.