A framework to succeed the Requirement Specification Document of IT projects in Morocco

Abstract

Integrating IT projects is becoming an essential challenge for companies today, especially in an era of digital transformation. IT projects refer to the information management systems of computers. This hard type of projects is characterized by urgency, uniqueness and uncertainly. Based on case studies from some Moroccan companies, and by analyzing the most recurring problems that lead to the failure of this type of project especially in the requirements phase. It can be concluded that the Moroccan IT project managers have real problems in managing time to produce documentation, on the understanding of the criticality of this early phase, which decide about the success or the failure of IT projects, and also on producing the requirements specification documents (huge documents, poor quality requirements, lack of managing documentation versions, missing requirements, etc.). In the literature, there are only some good practices to manage these problems, which are beneficial in some cases but catastrophic for others. Then IT project managers can't choose the right practice to follow. Also, some problems relate to the Moroccan companies, because of their understanding of the requirements phase. Also, there some methods which encounter these problems, but are never respected by Moroccan managers. In this article, we use the observation methodology in Moroccan IT companies to identify the common and recurring problems of the requirements specification phase and document. The study was based on 4 Moroccan companies during 4 years, and was used to analyze the factors which conduct to the failure of IT projects, then categorize and structure them. Finally, we propose an innovate framework, which guarantee a certain fluidity in the project requirement specification phase, as the standard used to write requirement specification, the automated management of the document versions, then the good advices to respect during the production of this essential deliverable to improve requirement quality, versions, dependencies, documentation, and then succeed this crucial phase. This innovative framework, advice for improvement, and best practices will enable IT projects in Morocco to succeed with a simple and fluid way, while ensuring quality, delivery, respecting the requirements specification phase standard.