Mining for Digital Gold: Technology Due Diligence for CIOs

How do CIOs decide which technologies to acquire and deploy? This paper presents a set of criteria used by CIOs to vet technology decisions and spread their technology bets. There is insight to be gained by defining, understanding, and applying these criteria. In fact, the more we understand the technology due diligence process the better our understanding of technology leverage becomes. Ultimately, the practice of solid due diligence processes is about the optimization of business technology. There are at least 15 criteria used by Chief Information Officers (CIOs) to perform due diligence on prospective technology investments. This paper describes these criteria and prescribes how they should be applied to technology investment decisions. CIOs benefit from a disciplined due diligence process; technology vendors also benefit since investment decision-making becomes repeatable and predictable – and therefore more manageable; and those who analyze technology decision-making benefit from disciplined due diligence which enables a systematic analysis of the drivers of technology acquisition and deployment, as well as the development of due diligence effectiveness metrics.