1. Volkswagen of America: Managing IT PrioritiesBy
Alex Cheong
Germaine Wong
Julie Laffy

2. What did Volkswagen get right regarding its method of prioritizing IT projects?
IT Governance
Business Architecture formalizing governance and prioritization processes of all departmental projects
Provide an overview of all projects presented – encourage system thinking approach
Link projects and core business processes with corporate goals
Process and protocol set up to evaluate, prioritize and implement projects to align with the corporate goals
The establishment of an IT governance
Business Process, Technology and Organization (BPTO)
Centralization of IT department
Centralization on the governance of the IT projects, and empowerment of the PMO - setting up of PMO to manage all IT projects by project manager who had to abide by project management standards
IT steering committee composed of senior business and IT representatives which guide and approve the process of IT project selection and prioritization

3. What did Volkswagen get right regarding its method of prioritizing IT projects?
Common projects grouped together, and identified dependencies amongst projects
Business units were engaged in aligning projects to the goals of NGR
Fair and balanced process to ensure IT projects that had key impact on enterprise goals for VWoA received funding
Categorization framework was introduced to define both the investment type, and the technological application used
More information on projects was available than ever before

4. How does it enable innovation?
Establishment of a governance team encouraged a systems thinking approach
New project prioritization encouraged proposals from business units on transformational projects
It focused on product diversification as part of the global strategic change initiative
“New vehicle value” ranked high on the enterprise goal and therefore drove R&D activities
Option-creating investment (OCI) categorized projects with the potential in new idea discovery or which lead to a competitive advantage for VWoA
OCI enabled VWoA to take on riskier projects and created the opportunity to innovate