It is widely known in the use of Markowitz Efficient Frontier in portfolio "money" mangement' will provide the greatest return for a given amount of risk. It indicates the efficient use of bonds, cash, stocks and other assets in a given portfolio by measuring changes in standard deviation given a certain set of economic indicators.
When constrained by budgets, staffing and "politics", it would be helpful to have an "objective" measure of project value based upon Markowitz' risk/reward technique..particularly when it is widely know that nearly 40% of all IT projects fail to deliver their planned results.
By placing the cumulative business value (discounted cash flows) against available budgets, the curve measures the opportunity of the project(s). It can then be seen that to increase expenditures in a project may only provide limited return, thereby falling off of the efficient frontier. While there are many factors in IT decisions, this approach attempts to eliminate barriers for success and bring commitment to the projects...as all parties can "objectively" understand the IT projects impact on the business model.