Your company has just completed a major IT initiative and is reviewing the outcome. It notes that the project took 3 months longer than expected. As part of the project, the company wanted to use some automatic bar code readers, but the rate of correct bar code reads was below the expected rate. Although managers were worried about employee acceptance of the new system, it appears that the employees have embraced it and, as a result, are making it work better than expected. Refer to Table 15.1 and identify how these results address the risk categories listed in the table.

TABLE 15.1: Examples of Risk-Mitigation Techniques

IT Initiative Risks _____________________________________________ Risk-Mitigation Examples

Alignment risk ................................... Use the Balanced Scorecard framework (Chapter 14) to assess the link to strategy.
Solution risk ....................................... Use sensitivity analysis to consider likely alternative benefit levels.
Financial risk .....................................Interview other users of similar IT; follow a structured Balanced Scorecard management process (Chapter 14).
Project risk ........................................  Ensure active top management support for the project.
Change risk ....................................... Conduct training, and create employee incentives for successful use of the new IT.
Technological risk ............................ Require hardware and software vendors to demonstrate that their systems can meet requirements.