Troubled Project Research Articles

أثر الوسائل المادية في إنقاذ المشاريع التجارية المتعثرة

Giving troubled commercial projects legal opportunities to rearrange their affairs, and then return them to commercial life is similar to returning the dying person to his normal life. The commercial law is either a cause of bankruptcy which causes many employees layoff or it can give a legal chance as to make the merchant make use of his mistakes and back to his work. It is necessary to find solutions represented by means that prevent bankruptcy on stumbling projects, and at the forefront of these material means is the release of the debts, which represents a real guarantee to get out of the financial crisis of these commercial projects, through which it is possible to convince the mass of creditors to absolve the troubled project or company from debts, as well as the release. The acquisition method can be relied on to save the troubled projects, and this requires that there be an agreement Effective control, according to legal procedures, by a company with a strong financial position, over a reluctant, sick, troubled company.

An Authentic Pedagogical Approach to Developing Information Systems Project-based Solutions

ABSTRACT The purpose of this research is to develop a pedagogical protocol using exposure to problem-based learning (PBL) simulations of challenges that could occur in the business world, particularly in information systems projects, to help students develop skills to address problem situations in their careers. This research was conducted with groups of business school graduate students, where students in the experimental group were exposed to problem-based situational components of a system development planning life cycle for specific information system business projects. Students who were subjected to the problem-based situational exercises and analysis in their classes scored significantly higher than a control group, regarding the recognition and solutions to problems in a troubled project. From a practical sense, recognizing problems with projects in business can possibly avert huge costs and disruptions in the management of projects and help avoid project failures.

The impact of cultural differences and group influence on the escalation of commitment

One of the most challenging decisions that a manager has to take is whether or not to abandon a project which is not going well. Previous studies have looked at different reasons for why individuals perserve with a troubled project. What the previous research has failed to consider is how cultural differences might affect decision-makers’ willingness to continue or abandon a project. To better understand the factors that might cause escalation of commitment, this dissertation investigates the influence of cognitive factors and cultural differences on the escalation dynamics. Since most decisions in the business world are made in groups, differences between individual and group decisions are analysed as well. Overall, the findings indicate the salience of certain cognitive factors in escalation behaviour, as previous researchers have found. In addition, this study found that cultural differences can also affect the decision to continue or abandon a project. Concerning the differences between the individual and the group decisions, these results suggest that in terms of some determinants, individuals from all cultures act the same, while with other factors the predisposition to escalate depends on a person’s cultural background. The implications of these results and different recommendations for both practice and further research are discussed.

Proactively Monitoring Large Project Portfolios

The discipline of project management has evolved over the years, yet projects still run into trouble, failing entirely, running late, or not delivering expected benefits. Program and portfolio managers need assistance identifying potentially troubled projects while they are being delivered, allowing time to intervene. We report on our investigation of whether project status reports from IT project portfolios can be used to predict projects that may be trending into trouble ahead of time. We found that this initial approach resulted in a high degree of accurate predictions opening new avenues of research in predicting project progress and health.

From ignorance to familiarity: Contextual knowledge and the field researcher

From ignorance to familiarity: Contextual knowledge and the field researcher

NSF fires managers of troubled NEON ecology project

NSF fires managers of troubled NEON ecology project

Pegaso Peru: An Overdue Project (A) and (B)

Brunella Noli, General Manager of a Peruvian consulting firm (Pegaso Peru), reviews the history of a troubled IT project for client Casa Master Center (CMC). The project is 11 months overdue, and CMC is an increasingly unhappy client. Noli's review, which starts with the sale and recounts the project's scope, contract and implementation, uncovers a series of problems. Noli seeks to resolve these issues without incurring additional costs. She worries that the relationship with the client is rapidly deteriorating and she fears that this will damage Pegaso's reputation. A second one-page Case B recounts what happened next. This case is based on actual events in real organizations. The identities of the parties involved have been changed, along with other key information, to preserve anonymity.

Hitting the IT-Implementation Trifecta

BPO and enterprise-software vendors need to manage enormous IT-implementation risks arising from their outsourcing contracts. They want to hit the IT-implementation trifecta: (i) finish on time; (ii) deliver under budget; and (iii) contribute spare cash to troubled IG projects. This payoff looks as good as the ones at the racetrack. But, how can the vendor stack the odds in its favor?The answer lies in applying proven risk-management and portfolio-underwriting techniques from other fields.Note -- This article arises from the entirely private research activities of the author and does not reflect the views of author's employers, past or present, nor any other organizations with which the author is or has been affiliated.

Book Review: Managing Projects in Trouble: Achieving Turnaround and Success

Book Review: Managing Projects in Trouble: Achieving Turnaround and Success

Managing projects in trouble

Managing projects in trouble

Turning around troubled projects in an ERP implementation project from consultancy project leaders' perspectives

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are used to provide companies with integrated information for operations management and decision-making. An ERP implementation project may become a troubled project at any stage during the life cycle of the project. We must detect and correct the causes of a project’s problems before it fails. This study investigated troubled ERP implementation projects, sought the root causes of the troubled projects and determined what actions could be taken to turn around the troubled projects. We used case study methodology. The purpose of this study was to help determine whether a project is troubled and summarise possible management methods for saving a project, while it is still possible or cancelling it with minimal negative impact.

Understanding Project Survival in an ES Environment: A Sociomaterial Practice Perspective

Modern organizations are increasingly choosing to adopt off-the-shelf software applications (e.g., Enterprise Systems, ES) rather than develop tailor-made solutions. However, many studies have shown that adopting prepackaged software is difficult with these highly integrated systems amplifying the potential for organizational conflict; especially once the system is rolled out to users. There is a gap in the literature related to this changing pattern of systems development, and researchers have begun investigating it. We contribute to this emerging literature while also shifting the focus of ES implementation research by offering a new perspective to understand the processes of mutual adaptation of the technical and social during system implementation and maintenance of large scale systems (ES). We focus on the turnaround process by which a troubled project at go-live becomes a working information system. Much IS literature to date has focused on the problems associated with configuration and implementation or the immediate (often negative) reaction to, and use of, packaged software. Yet, there is significant evidence that projects often do survive and yield a working information system in the face of, and despite, a negative release. Based on data from an intensive qualitative field study within a university, we find that practices are negotiated through processes of use rather than being permanently and systematically selected at a particular moment in time and, in so doing, we offer one of the first works to address the issue of sociomateriality and its implications for understanding the evolution of large scale IT systems.

Deal saves Europe's transport aircraft plans

Following months of negotiations, seven European governments have reached a deal with EADS, the parent company of aircraft manufacturer Airbus, which should rescue the troubled A400M transport-aircraft project from failure. At a time when persistent gaps in European military capabilities are defying solutions, and with defence-budget cuts expected, many governments have begun to look more closely at multinational cooperation to generate improved capabilities at better value for the taxpayer. However, the A400M saga provides a sobering background to the debate.

The Availability in the UAE of Liens to Secure Payment under Construction Contracts

AbstractWhile much attention has been devoted to curbing the rise of lawsuits surrounding Dubai’s struggling construction industry, surprisingly little attention has been focused on another option available to contractors who seek payment for failed or troubled projects. Contractors, architects, and engineers may find relief under a seldom-reported UAE federal law that establishes qualified rights for contractors to secure payment for work under non-governmental contracts by filing a priority lien against the project itself. This article discusses the remedy, known in many common-law jurisdictions as ‘mechanic’s liens’ or ‘builders’ liens’, and why it is important for contractors to be familiar with the applicable Civil Code and Civil Procedure Code provisions. Those who first exercise their lien rights and seek to register liens with the Land Department will be treading new ground and will want to be well- prepared and educated on their rights provided under existing law.

Individual characteristics and the intention to continue project escalation

The factors leading to the continuing problems with information system (IS) project failure are of importance to both the research and practitioner communities. The psychological factors that lead project managers to escalate troubled projects are investigated. Theoretical grounding is presented for a research model consisting of Need for Achievement as an antecedent trait for implementation mindset, internal locus of control, preference for consistency, and time urgency, which in turn predict the Intention to Continue a troubled IS project. Using responses from 232 IS project stakeholders, the model is tested using structural equation modeling. The results support Need for Achievement as an antecedent to the other independent variables. Implementation mindset and internal locus of control were found to be significant predictors of the project managers’ intention to continue the IS projects. Based on the findings, suggestions for project re-evaluation milestones (PRMs) are presented.

Profiling the Leadership of Project Managers

Leadership is a concept rooted in human relationships, personal experience, and introspection. Teaching leadership, therefore, is best done by placing students in simulated situations where each individual can recognize within a short time the systemic consequences of personal behaviors and actions affecting others. A 52-action-card game was developed for this purpose. The game reveals a “player's” current management or leadership preferences and also elicits questioning and team discussion of the consequences of alternative actions. The cards provide a choice of actions that are plausible in responding to a deeply troubled construction project. Unbeknown to the players, each suite of action cards represents a different style. The game consists of selecting and recording 10 action cards, which, first in the opinion of the individual and then by consensus after vigorous team discussion and negotiation, will improve the troubled construction project. The individually selected cards are plotted on a four quadrant spider graph, profiling the students' leadership and management preferences, both at the beginning and at the end of the course or seminar. By selecting again 10 preferred action cards at the conclusion of a session, any shift in preferences can be assessed.

What Resident Engineers Should Know about Risk Management

The role of the resident engineer, or owner’s representative, is typically defined as the field liaison between the owner and the contractor or contractors during construction. The resident engineer’s responsibility is to monitor the construction process so that the project is completed as designed based upon the owner’s plans and specifications. The resident engineer’s actual role, however, is much greater than this: the resident engineer is a manager of risk throughout the construction lifecycle. Allegations of fraud, misconduct, waste and abuse, and subsequent litigation in the construction industry are commonplace today; mitigating the risk presented by these allegations in addition to completing the project as originally designed is the most important role that a qualified, competent resident engineer must undertake. During the course of the job, a resident engineer must make a wide range of technical and nontechnical judgment decisions on a daily basis, often requiring him or her to be an arbitrator, an interpreter of specifications, and the final judge on many issues. Out of the hundreds of decisions the resident engineer will make over the course of a construction project, however, which ones stand to put the owner, the resident engineer’s firm, and/or the resident engineer themselves at great professional and financial risk? The purpose of this paper is to inform less-experienced resident engineers the importance of identifying, analyzing, and responding to specific project risks and also college and university faculty to stress the importance of teaching risk management topics in civil engineering courses and/or curricula. Resident engineers should be made aware of the owner’s rights contained in the contract audit clause, a provision typically found in the general conditions section of cost-reimbursable contracts. When evoked, the contract audit clause presents a powerful tool for the owner to access any and all documents pertaining to the project, including information from the contractor s , subcontractors, lower-tier subcontractors, and suppliers for a stipulated period of time after final payment to the contractor has been administered. While the astute resident engineer may realize early on that a troubled project will likely be audited after completion, other times finished projects are selected on a purely random basis based upon standard owner policy, or the requirement of a local city ordinance or government oversight committee. Either way, before beginning an assignment, the resident engineer must be made aware that his or her project could be audited. In addition to maintaining copious records of all transactions and events that occur during construction, the resident engineer needs to consider how seemingly normal ethical decisions could appear to be unethical from the eyes of an external third-party auditor. Another section of the general conditions all resident engineers should familiarize themselves with is liquidated damages LDs . These are inserted into some construction contracts to

The Effect of IT Failure Impact and Personal Morality on IT Project Reporting Behavior

An individual's reluctance to report the actual status of a troubled project has recently received research attention as an important contributor to project failure. While there are a variety of factors influencing the reluctance to report, prior information systems research has focused on only situational factors such as risk, information asymmetry, and time pressure involved in the given situation. In this paper, we examine the effects of both situational and personal factors on an individual's reporting behavior within the rubric of the basic whistle-blowing model adapted from Dozier and Miceli . Specifically, we identify perceived impact of information technology (IT) failure as a situational factor and personal morality and willingness to communicate as personal factors, and investigate their effects on the assessments and decisions that individuals make about reporting the IT project's status. Based on the results of a controlled laboratory experiment, we found that perceived impact of IT failure directly affects an individual's assessment of whether a troubled project's status ought to be reported, exerting an indirect influence on willingness to report bad news, and that personal morality directly affects all three steps in the basic whistle-blowing model, as hypothesized. Willingness to communicate, however, was found not to affect an individual's willingness to report bad news. The implications of these findings and directions for future research are discussed.

Project termination analysis in SMEs: making the right call

Abandoning a project is difficult as it engages an enormous psychological load for project managers and team members and increases personal and professional insecurities. Organisations not only delay this kind of decisions, but also escalate their commitment into a failing project. Terminating a failing project with least of problems, releasing valuable resources and investing in higher potential projects are crucial for organisation's prosperity. The aim of this study is to support the decision making when project termination is of question, help project managers and executives understand the problem context and revise their belief about terminating projects. The paper proposes a framework, based on the analytic network process. The study reveals the criteria that have to be taken into consideration in project termination decisions and provides a structured approach in order to help managers make decisions. The paper includes a case study of a troubled ERP implementation project in a SME.

Partial abandonment as an exit strategy for troubled IT projects

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to conduct a stakeholder analysis to find out what factors contribute to partial abandonment and also to examine stakeholders' roles and role conflicts in a partial abandonment implementation process.Design/methodology/approachA case study of a partially abandoned electronic procurement system project is discussed and analyzed within a small‐and‐medium enterprise in Australia. Semi‐structured interviews, on‐site observation and documentation were the data collection method adopted in this study.FindingsBased on the findings derived from the study, this paper proposes a stakeholder assessment framework of partial abandonment to examine stakeholders' roles and role conflicts in influencing organizational decisions to partially abandon troubled IT projects.Originality/valueThe framework will help both researchers and practitioners to shed light on stakeholder‐related issues of partial abandonment, as it offers the flexibility to accommodate understanding of various causes that may have contributed to the partial abandonment decision.