At American Airlines, Ford goes one step further and tables such enquiries. When businesspeople ask technical questions, he directs them to prepared reference slides. Meanwhile, Ford keeps budget sessions focused on the business by having his lieutenants who work most closely with American's business units participate in each business unit's budget presentations. That strategy lets Ford's department heads show off their business expertise and prove that IT's portion of the payroll is going to good use.

Ford does not rely on charts to illustrate the value of IT. "If I'm not doing my job in the eyes of my counterpart [say, the marketing executive], no function point analysis is going to tell him otherwise," Ford says. Ford cites his current budget planning, in which one emphasis is faster turnaround on assignments. "We think we're pretty quick, and we're faster than last year, but there are a couple of business units that don't agree with that." So rather than argue back with charts showing how fast IT gets the job done, Ford's managers will explain how their plans will improve timeliness even more.

Some CIOs do, however, find that illustrating IT performance sometimes helps them make their case. Kevin Kearns, the former CIO and CFO (and now CEO) at Health Choice Networks in Miami, found budget benchmarks to be an effective tool for quelling unrest amongst the board members. As CIO, Kearns made sure the board of the community health centre knew his spending, at about 2.5 percent of revenue, was below the industry average of 3 percent to 4 percent of revenue. The comparison helped him get his basic budget numbers passed.