Investing and Throwing Money

There are three ways to spend money on new technology. Two good and one bad.

• Trying it involves spending a small amount of money and time to determine if it has reached a maturity that can be useful in the organization.
• Investing in it involves preparing a business case outlining expected business benefits and then spending a lot of money implementing it at scale in the organization.
• Throwing Money at it is just like investing but without the business case.

I am always amazed when I see CIOs declaring that they are investing in some fancy new technology (AI these days) but failing to articulate any specific business goals when asked. That’s not investing; that’s throwing money.