The Role of Project Management in a Small Business IT Firm

Abstract

Small businesses have found project management to be a powerful approach since it encourages them to focus on results and also demands effective leadership. It also provides them with a single point of management contact which, among other factors, fosters a synergistic atmosphere encouraging the team to focus on achieving a common goal within a specific time frame and resource constraints. Despite applying the best practices, projects fail primarily for two reasons. First, although most firms do abide by the best practices to some degree, they do not perform them rigorously. Most intelligent software development organizations are still immature. According to the Standish group, fewer than 31% of IT projects succeed, nearly 20% are cancelled before completion, and the remaining 53% are challenged by being seriously late, over budget, or lacking expected features (Marchewka, 2003). Furthermore, on average, 70% of all information technology- (IT) related projects fail to meet their objectives (Lewis, 2003). This case examines the role of the project management life cycle in a small IT firm ABC that implements competitive intelligent systems for their clients in the health care industry. The research question designed for this article is: how does the project management life cycle facilitate the development of IT solutions? We describe the impact of IT in the ABC firm and its role in the project management life cycle. We then discuss the challenges and lessons learned by the firm, thereby contributing to factors that would benefit practitioners and researchers.