Nolan's theory of stages

In his stage theory , Richard L. Nolan , Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School (Harvard University) , categorized the development of information technology in companies.

Nolan classified the development in 3 main categories (eras) with three sub-categories each.

1. DV era
   1. initialization
   2. Spread
   3. control
2. Era of information processing
   1. integration
   2. IT architecture
   3. Unbundling
3. Network era
   1. distribution
   2. Reorganization & collaboration
   3. Personalization & privatization

Nolan has put forward four theses on the development of IT

1. The development of IT takes place in stages.
2. A stage can only be started when the previous one has been completed
3. No company can buy skipping a development stage.
4. There must be a balance between the learning areas of IT resources , IT management , IT costs, IT users and IT application areas.

In practice, Nolan's theory is widely used, although it is scientifically controversial.

literature

Richard L. Nolan, Managing the computer resource: a stage hypothesis. Commun. ACM 16, 7 (Jul. 1973), pp. 399-405