ItValue

Itvalue is a term used in information technology and software development with multiple senses. In business and IT governance, it denotes the value contributed by IT investments to an organization. It is used to refer to a composite measure or framework that aims to quantify benefits such as productivity gains, faster time-to-market, improved decision making, risk reduction, and strategic alignment, offset by costs and risks. The concept is central to value management and benefits realization, where IT value is tracked through metrics like return on investment, total cost of ownership, net present value, and intangible benefits. Different frameworks define IT value differently; some emphasize value realization over the project lifecycle, others focus on value streams and governance.

In programming and data processing, itvalue or it_value appears as a variable name in examples to hold the current item or the evaluated value of an expression. It is not a language feature but a conventional identifier that developers may use in tutorials or sample code. The capitalization variants, such as ItValue or it_value, reflect common naming conventions in languages such as Java, Python, or C++. The term may appear in documentation as a placeholder representing an arbitrary value.

History and context: The notion of measuring IT value emerged in the late 20th century with the rise of IT governance frameworks. It remains an area of ongoing research and practice as organizations seek to demonstrate the contribution of technology to business outcomes.