Managing Information Technology

South African electricity utilities are spending billions of rand on capitalexpansion projects to address an aging electricity infrastructure where capacityhas been outpaced by the growth in the economy. This expenditure will growboth the asset and customer bases of these utilities, resulting in the need foradditional spending on information technology (IT) infrastructure. Successful ITprojects require an understanding of risk factors and risk treatment strategies.Managing successful IT projects in an economic downturn requires anunderstanding of the critical risk factors that are essential to avoiding disaster.This research sets out to identify which South African IT practitioners in thepublic sector and, more specifically, in electricity utilities determine to be criticalrisks in the context of an economic downturn and what the treatment strategieswould be for the critical risks.A qualitative approach, using in-depth interviews, was followed to collect data.The analysis of this data led to the extraction of the critical risks and treatmentstrategies and key themes in the area of IT risk management.The key findings were that South African IT practitioners in this sector ratetraditional IT project management risks as more important than newertechnology risks and are still challenged by commercial processes andgovernance in the public sector. Furthermore, most IT practitioners agree withthe literature concerning economic related risks, specifically ones that focus oneconomic and political contexts. Finally, IT practitioners confirm the literatureabout the treatment of these critical risks.The key message for chief information officers (CIOs) and executivemanagement is that there is a view on which IT risks are critical in this sectorand, additionally, which ones are related to an economic downturn. Analysis ofthese risks will highlight structural problems within these organisations thatneed to be resolved to allow IT projects to be successful