Encouraging Dissent

Tonight in class we covered many topics; one of which was the criteria for evaluating IT projects.  In a classroom exercise I had the class look at a list of projects (Project A - Project Z) and determine which projects that should be funded.  The projects included a corresponding calculated return on investment (ROI), priority (relative alignment to the business strategy), and project budget.  I also added a constraint that we must distribute the funding so that 50% of the budget was spent on infrastructure projects, 15% on transactional projects, 20% on strategic project and 15% on informational projects.  As a result, we ended up with four separate portfolios of projects.

During our evaluation, one of the students came up with a project funding decision that was counter to what I had in mind.  After listening to the student's reasoning for this funding decision I explained why my approach was different and the reasoning for my approach.  Between our two explanations our class realized that we needed further information to best determine the proper funding approach and both approaches must be considered in the project selection process.

This student's willingness to dissent and the environment we created in class of permitting respectful dissent provided for a great debate and resulted in a better understanding of the true criteria needed for project evaluations.  It was a very successful lesson for all of us and I was very pleased we were able to have this exchange of ideas.  I'm very eager to maintain this environment in this class and other classes.  Respectful debate is healthy and results in the discovery of new ideas.