Different perspectives – A significant difference in opinion exists between IT and business executives about how well projects meet expectations for being on time and on budget, and for delivering promised results.

The missing link – Though the situation is steadily improving, a significant gap still exists in how well business executives/managers understand new technology and, conversely, how well IT executives/managers understand the insurance business.  This continues to hinder good decision making and results in expectations that are unrealistic or impractical.

The more things change the more they remain the same – The key drivers for new technology expenditures continue to be service improvement and expense reduction.

The troubling trio – Participants were asked to evaluate the major elements of their system development process: decision making, project planning, customer requirements, business requirements, system requirements, implementation planning, testing, training and rollout.  The study revealed: (1) Many organizations either lack or don’t follow a well-defined system development methodology; (2) Most methodologies do not incorporate business process design; and (3) Measurement of results is weak.