IT Project Prioritization Leveraging the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP)

Abstract

The University of Kansas Information Technology (KU IT) helps provide service solutions to the faculty, staff, and students of the Lawrence Main Campus and Edwards Campus. To keep up with the ever-changing needs of the campus, KU IT starts and completes hundreds of projects each year. The sheer quantity of projects that run through KU IT each year makes it difficult to balance resources and maintain strategic alignment while still meeting the needs of customers. The objective of this research is to develop and exercise an Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) model that aids in project prioritization. The AHP is a mathematical decision-making tool that helps standardize the decision-making process while bringing transparency and defensibility to the decisions made. An AHP model was created and exercised on a small subset of KU IT projects. This model was used as a proof of concept to evaluate the AHP and the feasibility of using this technique to aid in IT project prioritization. As a control, for comparison’s sake, the same subset of projects was prioritized using the traditional methods employed by KU IT. The result for both the AHP and the traditional methods was a prioritized list of projects. The traditional method was considerably faster, but provides executive leadership no transparency to the process and would be difficult for the KU IT Leadership Team to defend. The AHP model, while more involved, led to a result that can be explained and justified. It is also the result of a highly transparent and collaborative process.