Information Technology Project Success Research Articles

The business case: The missing link between information technology benefits and organisational strategies

Purpose: Business cases are an integral part of information technology (IT) projects, providingthe linkage between the organisational strategies and the promised benefits. Most majorproject management standards and methodologies make reference to the business case andits intended usage.Problem investigated: The success of IT projects is measured based on the benefits they deliver; anecdotal evidence states that IT projects fail at an alarming rate. The benefits are promised in the business case and should be delivered. This study focuses on whether there is a gap between theory and practice with regard to the way that organisations use the business case to approve, manage and track the promised benefits throughout an IT project.Methodology: This article reports on exploratory research that was initiated to establish the current practice of business case application. Four research questions were developed based on an extensive literature review to support or debunk the anecdotal evidence. Semi-structured interviews were used to gather evidence from organisations based on these research questions.Findings: The results suggest that organisations make use of business cases for various reasons and mostly in line with theory. There are, however, aspects that need to be addressed, such as the linkage between the business case and the harvesting of promised benefits.Value of research: This article confirms the theoretical aspects of the business case but highlights some deviations from practice. Organisations need to be more vigilant in the management of the business case to ensure the tracking and realisation of promised benefits.

An Adaptive and Preemptive Theory for Improving Systemic IT Project Failure Trends (“AdaPIT” Theory)

Information Technology (IT) systems have become an important competitive element across the great majority of industries, and technology projects are entrenched within all domains becoming larger and encompassing cross functional components. This increased technological dependency and transformation also increases the risk to organizations as a whole if something goes wrong. Pragmatically things often do go wrong and despite the evolution and sophistication of project management frameworks and methodologies a great percentage of IT projects are still failing. Although multiple actions have attempted to address this costly and prevailing trend, they have yet to positively and/or consistently impact it, even though it has caused additional management burdens and costly compliance requirements along the way. As the projections for IT investment increase by a magnitude of 3.5% (annual average) and IT project failures report losses in the billions (Gartner, 2011), this trend has become ever steeper over time. It is likely that the rates are even higher than the industry reports because individuals and organizations fear back lash when identifying and communicating perceived failures. The alarming (and increasing) rates of IT Project Failure 4 are strong indicators that this systemic trend has not yet been addressed from a causal perspective. The authors hence conducted extensive research in order to enable the assessment of this pervasive and costly issue through a unique approach and leveraged the social “lens” (one of the three fundamental research methodology pillars). Hypothesizing that the underlining key factors associated with this costly and pervasive trend could be traced to “soft factors” an extensive (multi-method) research effort based on three fundamental pillars (Grounded Theory, System Dynamics an Social Theory) has been conducted and has unveiled a new theoretical model promising greater understanding of IT (and potentially other) programs and projects. The IT project construct is looked upon by the researchers as “mini organizations” characterized by multiple changes and natural disruptions to the Social Order over time. The philosophical research framework was then operationalized by means of a four phased multi-method approach promoting a root cause identification of key factors driving IT project success and/or failures as well as their interdependencies and impacts. This paper presents the outcomes of this research (emerging theory), its key challenges and how they were overcome and discusses the Adaptive and Preemptive IT Theory (“AdaPIT”). In essence the “AdaPIT” Theory does not replace any existing IT project Management framework: it simply incorporates the identified Intangible Soft Factor (“ISF's”) into the applicable project construct. The main theory unveiled has been modeled and presented through multiple views that will be discussed in this paper. A summary analysis of the research findings will also be provided. It encompasses the author's representation from all data points collected throughout this investigation inclusive of their own experiences (“all is data”) as well as the review and feedback from industry practitioners, Grounded Theory subject matter experts and other technical and/or managerial personnel. The summary outcome (AdaPIT Theory) encompasses the data collection, analysis and hypotheses support process within the multi-method research framework.

An Investigation of the Critical Success Factors of IT Projects in Saudi Arabian Public Organizations

Abstract Despite of the huge investments in information technology (IT), IT project success rates are unsatisfactory and still remain very low. This issue has been investigated by many researchers all over the world to identify the critical success factors. However, there is no universal agreement on which factors are significant to success. This paper presents an investigative study of the main factors that affect IT projects success in Saudi Arabian public organizations. A two-phase approach has been adopted combining qualitative and quantitative research methods. In phase I, a qualitative approach using semi-structured interview method was used to collect and analyze the data, and the findings of this phase proposed seventeen factors. Then, in phase II, a quantitative approach using questionnaire method was used to assess and validate the outcomes of phase I. The findings of the questionnaire confirmed the importance of those seventeen factors, and the critical success factors (CSFs) of IT projects in Saudi Arabian public organizations to be found are: top management support and commitment, project management, project team competency, communication management, strategic planning, training and education, partners and suppliers management, and stakeholders management.

Workforce issues and their impact on projects: study on the Indian IT and ITeS industry

Today’s information technology (IT) industry is facing challenges from different corners because of globalization, technological changes, market and economic fluctuations and dynamic changes in customer requirements. A new stream of jobs has been emerging from time to time in the IT and IT enabled services (ITeS) industry. People management is gaining more concern when compared to technology management. Issues of recruiting right people with right and special skills, motivating them to improve their productivity continuously and retaining potential and productive people are becoming additional challenges to the success of IT projects by enabling the IT industry achieve steady growth and continue the ongoing projects without any interruptions or constraints. The study focuses on the dynamics of human work force of IT projects and analyses the important issues of managing the manpower and their impact on time, cost and quality of the projects. From the analysis of data collected through surveys in some big IT and ITeS companies in India, it was found that the issue of availability of human resources stood as the most significant issue in addition to showing highest impact on quality, cost and time of the IT projects. In contrast, the issue of employees-oriented programs attributed lowest significance and showing least impact on the three success factors of IT projects when compared with remaining ones.

Involve Users or Fail

Repeated surveys, and most notably those by the Standish Group, suggest that a substantial proportion of Information Technology (IT) projects fail. The literature suggests that this is in part due to a lack of user involvement in the project. The authors’ research describes the case study of a major IT system implementation project in East Africa. The paper reports on the results of both an online questionnaire and interviews with key participants. The authors’ findings suggest that the subsequent failure of this project was in large part attributable to a lack of user involvement in the definition of requirements and implementation of the system. There did not appear to be an organisational culture that recognised the significance of such participation in the project. Although there are issues of definition raised, such as the definition of success and failure, this work supports previous findings that user involvement is a key factor in IT project success and failure.

Information Technology Project Management and Project Success

One of the most important issues for organizations and information technology professionals is the success of information technology (IT) projects. This study reviews a survey of financial executives and examines their views on aspects of project management and project success. First, it was found that overall systems development projects are viewed as being successful by organizations. Next, a series of analyses were performed to assess several variables’ impact on IT project success. Skilled project measurement was found to result in higher IT project success. Restrictions on IT application development were found to correlate to lower IT project success. The most important project consideration did not affect project success. Finally, a significant positive relationship was found between the IT project success and overall IT returns. The implications, limitations, and conclusions of these findings are discussed. The study can be used as a basis for further exploration on project management success, influencing variables, and motivators. The findings can also be used to guide management teams in project management decisions to maximize returns to their organizations. The paper studies a large secondary data sample set, which empirically reviews corporations’ experiences with project management. In addition, it explores variables influencing overall project management success perception.

Impact of nontechnical leadership practices on it project success

AbstractThis article examines the leadership practices utilized by information technology (IT) project managers that contribute to project success. Specifically, technical and nontechnical leadership practices are contrasted. The importance of nontechnical leadership practices in IT project management has been largely ignored in research until recently. The article identifies key nontechnical leadership practices that are important for the success of IT projects. The article is based on a qualitative study that gathered data from actual IT projects conducted at U.S. companies across several different industry segments. Study results are analyzed to determine the relevance and value of Heifetz's adaptive leadership framework to the area of IT project management. Study findings indicate that nontechnical leadership practices are important to the success of IT projects. Findings also indicate that Heifetz's adaptive leadership framework is consistent with the key nontechnical leadership practices that are important for the success of IT projects. A framework for the development of IT project managers is also proposed.

A project manager's optimism and stress management and IT project success

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to determine how the soft competencies of an information technology (IT) project manager, specifically optimism and stress, can affect project success.Design/methodology/approachThe research was exploratory. Experienced IT project managers were requested to relate a “structured” story regarding a significant, personal experience relating to optimism or stress and how this affected the project outcome. In total, eight stories were captured on the optimism theme and five on stress. Themes from these stories were identified.FindingsQualitative analysis of the stories identified several project managers' optimism themes that strongly influenced IT project success. In addition, it was concluded that IT project success was both positively and negatively influenced by stress. To improve their chances of project success, it was concluded that IT project managers should have a positive but realistic degree of optimism based on a well‐accepted project plan. Whilst the project team should expect and embrace stress during the project, this should be carefully managed.Originality/valueSix important project management practical activities were deduced from the analysis which could assist project managers and their teams to better handle optimism and stress. These activities, when applied effectively, could lead to improved project outcomes.

Antecedents of Project Success: The Perception of Vendor Employees

The global outsourcing market is the fastest-growing segment of information technology (IT) services. The success of outsourced IT projects has been related to organizational issues such as structure and culture, and decision-making infrastructure such as process and project management methodologies. This research studies the impact of these factors on relationship quality and vendor performance. Most of the studies about the success of outsourced IT projects are from the client perspective. With the rise in the outsourcing of IT services, the amount of work performed on site by vendor employees has increased.The authors use a survey of vendor employees who work at client sites, under the supervision of the client manager, to add to the vendor's perspective of project success. The survey results indicate that the quality of the relationship between the client and vendor company has a significant impact on project outcomes. Effective process management practices at client organizations and a healthy, open organizational culture lead to improved contractor performance and a better perception of the relationship quality. Organizations need to take a more strategic view toward process management improvement efforts, and project managers need to focus on promoting formal processes, quality communication, and trustworthy behavior toward vendor employees.

Management Principles Associated With IT Project Success

Success in information technology (IT) projects remains elusive, even after decades of efforts to improve it. Most of these efforts have focused on variations of the traditional project management paradigm as promulgated by PMBOK. We suspected that a potential cause of high IT project failure is with the paradigm, which focuses on the project itself and on meeting time and cost targets. A new paradigm called Value-Driven Change Leadership (VDCL) originated from discussions of a panel of project management experts. This paper describes the principles of that paradigm. It also reports the results from a survey of four project managers on the association between project success and management principles from VDCL and PMBOK.

A Holistic Approach for Understanding Project Management

Companies invest significant sums of money in major Information Technology (IT) projects, yet success remains limited. Despite an abundance of IT Project Management (ITPM) resources available to project teams, such as the Project Management Institute (PMI) Body of Knowledge, IT standards and IT governance, a large percentage of IT projects continue to fail and ultimately get scrapped. Recent studies have shown an average of 66% IT project failure rate, with 52% of the projects being cancelled, and 82% being delivered late. The purpose of this research was to provide a way for uncovering potential causes of IT project failures by utilizing a systemic and holistic approach to identify critical success factors for project management. The holistic approach has enabled the development of an ITPM conceptual model, which provides a method to evaluate the critical success factors of a given project, and their alignment with each other. The adoption of the systemic methodology and its implementation increase the potential for IT project success, and alert project leaders of potential problems throughout the life of the project.

Learning processes in municipal broadband projects: An absorptive capacity perspective

Effective knowledge management is important to the success of information technology projects. This research applies the integrated lens of the absorptive capacity theory and the social process model of information system development projects to examine the dynamic of knowledge activities concerning broadband infrastructure development in the context of municipal broadband networks. The research questions are: (1) What is the extent of the dynamic of knowledge activities involved in the development process?, (2) What are the events that trigger knowledge activities in municipal broadband development?, and (3) How does a city create and utilize new knowledge in the development process? This study examines municipal wireless projects in three cities (Chaska, MN; Hermosa Beach, CA; and Fredericton, Canada). Events that trigger knowledge activities are assignment of personnel, physical system construction, performance problems, resistance, and reassignment of organizational roles. Four factors that influence knowledge activities and project performance are the dynamic of technology development, partnership commitments, limitation of external knowledge and learning-by-doing, and political dynamics. The study has policy implications for cities that are in the process of planning and deployment. A good project planning, user expectation management, systematic performance evaluation, a careful partner selection process, and the use of service level agreements are important to project success. In addition, cities need to take into consideration that the technology is not a plug and play technology and that considerable efforts are needed to integrate the technology with other solutions to deliver broadband services as well as to configure the system according to topologies, street conditions, buildings, density of trees, among others.

An application of human performance technology: A case study at LG CNS

IT (Information Technology) service providers have been making serious efforts for the success of numerous IT projects. For each project, they have been trying to satisfy expectations and requirements from stakeholders such as customers, partners, the project team, and so on. However, in reality, customers have perceived that IT services are late in delivery time, over budgeted, or of low quality, despite the providers’ efforts. LG CNS, an IT service provider, has innovated the internal service process by using HPT (Human Performance Technology), i.e. performance engineering. This case study reports how they identified problems and devised a way to alleviate the problems by analyzing the performance of IT service projects.

Success in IT projects: A matter of definition?

This paper presents findings from an exploratory study that investigated how 36 companies operating in three industry sectors in Australia define and measure Information Technology (IT) project success. Our study suggests that when success criteria are formally defined and then measured, IT project outcomes are improved and project resources are better utilized. In addition, those companies with the most effective methods for defining and measuring IT project success shared some important common practices. Based on these findings, this paper provides insights for defining (and improving) project success in complex environments and presents a model of effective practices.

Risk management in information technology projects

There are several studies on managing risks in information technology (IT) projects. Most of the studies identify and prioritise risks through empirical research in order to suggest mitigating measures. Although they are important to clients for future projects, these studies fail to provide any framework for risk management from IT developers' perspective. Although a few studies introduced a framework of risk management in IT projects, most of them are presented from clients' perspectives and very little effort has been made to integrate this with the project management cycle. As IT developers absorb a considerable amount of risk, an integrated framework for managing risks in IT projects from developers' perspective is needed in order to ensure success in IT projects. The main objective of the paper is to develop a risk management framework for IT projects from the developers' perspective. This study uses a combined qualitative and quantitative technique with the active involvement of stakeholders in order to identify, analyse and respond to risks. The entire methodology has been explained using a case study on an information technology project in a public sector organisation in Barbados.

IT Projects Performance Indices and Evaluation

Abstract Information Technology (IT) is the fastest growing technology in the world today. Investment on IT projects in all the sectors of the world economy has been on the increase in the past ten years. This paper proposes 50 performance indices of IT projects and a tool for evaluating them. Some popular IT projects in Nigeria were surveyed by administering questionnaires and holding meetings with their principal actors. The performance indices were subjected to factor analysis by principal components using Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS). Eleven factors were extracted and the percentage contribution of each factor to the success of IT projects was estimated. The total sum of the percentage contributions of all the factors was found to be less than 100. This revealed that there were some extraneous factors whose related performance indices were not considered in the administered questionnaire which were liable to play a significant role in the success of IT projects. Moreover, a factor scores coefficient matrix that can be used to estimate and rank the assessment of each Assessor of IT projects was generated.

Project Management in Student Information Technology Projects

Universities teach project management to information technology (IT) students. The project management principles that students previously have learned often are put into practice in a project course that is intended to give final-year students the experience of applying their knowledge to real or simulated projects. This article reports on research that investigated the use and usefulness of project management in student IT projects. The results show that there was a wide range in the application of project management practices, with students being more likely to produce the initial documentation associated with some of the project management knowledge areas than to make use of it throughout the project to monitor the project’s progress. The results also showed that the number of project management guidelines applied in student projects was not linked to IT project success. However, there was a strong relationship between project management plan quality and obtaining a good software product.

The attribution of success and failure in IT projects

PurposeThe purpose of this research is to determine how project managers attribute information technology (IT) project success and failure.Design/methodology/approachIT personnel from large Australian organisations completed an adapted version of the Attributional Styles questionnaire, which asked them to attribute causes along a number of attribution dimensions, for IT projects which have either succeeded or failed.FindingsThe results indicate that IT support workers attribute failure to external factors, whilst attributing success to themselves. On the other hand, executive management took a more balanced perspective which attribute success to external factors and only partially to themselves, whereas they attribute significant personal responsibility for failure.Practical implicationsMore junior professionals and operational IT employees can learn from their senior professionals in attributing success and failure. Post‐implementation reviews and debriefings conducted by senior IT professionals are ways of passing on their experience in relation to project and self‐evaluations.Originality/valueThis paper takes a well established psychology theory and applies it to the management of information systems (IS)/IT projects. IS/IT research has not examined how IT professionals attribute success and failure within projects.

PREDICTORS OF STUDENT SUCCESS IN A PROJECT MANAGEMENT COURSE

The importance of project management is increasing in Information Systems (IS) and Information Technology (IT) education. The IS model curriculum includes a course on project management, while the recently promulgated ABET CAC accreditation criteria for programs in IT state that graduates from IT programs must have the ability to assist in the creation of an effective project plan. Moreover, this interest in project management is partly driven by industry. For example, in its recurrent interviews with CIOs, the Standish group found that having an experienced project manager is now seen as one of the main factors for success in IT projects. In a preliminary study reported last year, we found that having a project management course early in the program of study seemed to help students in subsequent heavily project-based courses. This was especially true in regard to students with a lower GPA. Given the importance of project management for student success, both after graduation and in their program of study, it is important to try to determine what factors are likely to increase student success in a project management course. In this research, we examine a number of factors, including performance in prior courses such as management and organizational behavior, statistics, and mathematics. We also examine whether there is a relationship between student success in a project management course and when students take the course in their academic programs.

Factors Affecting Knowledge Transfer in IT Projects

:This article presents empirical research studying factors affecting knowledge transfer in information technology (IT) projects. The factors evaluated in this research include information technology, systems and procedures, and culture. The various dimensions of IT project success include project performance, project outcome, system implementation, benefits for the client organization, and benefits for the stakeholders. A survey conducted in Norway collected data on knowledge transfer and project success. Research results show that total project success relates to the extent of culture for effective knowledge transfer.