On the Imperative Solicitude for Evolvability Evaluation in Value Management

A rapidly changing market environment is forcing contemporary organizations to continually adapt themselves. This causes the need for organizational structures, processes as well as their supporting information systems (IS) to adapt accordingly. Nevertheless it is striking to note that few value management practices explicitly incorporate evolvability as an important criterion for their evaluation of information technology dependent strategic initiatives (ITDSI). In this paper, the authors try to make a contribution regarding this issue. They explore some possibilities for assessing the evolvability of an information technology (IT) application. In addition, a set of five specific management guidelines is proposed to guide organizations, which are willing to address this issue, in their efforts. This should enable an organization to more easily select and deploy evolvable information systems, enhance its overall alignment with its environment and obtain a competitive advantage. The relevance of our approach is demonstrated by showing how it fits within the enterprise goals, IT goals and enabling practices as defined by the COBIT framework.