Abstract
The failure of Information Systems (IS) projects has been a constant theme for the last 40 years or more with the loss of many millions of pounds for the organizations concerned (Dwivedi et al. 2013a, 2015a, b). Despite attempts to professionalize the industry with the adoption of formal structured project management methodologies, bodies of knowledge, IS development methods and processes, formal major project gateway reviews, and professional practitioner certification, project failure is still a regular occurrence. The widely cited CHAOS report (Standish Group 2013) highlighted a trend of IS success rates of between 29 and 39 % for the period 2004–2012. This suggests that while success rates are improving, well over half of IS projects do not succeed. The 2014 National Audit Office’s (NAO) report on the failed BBC Digital Media Initiative (DMI) project reminds us that large IS failure remains an ever-present issue. The NAO highlighted a number of factors that were responsible for the £125.9 million project abandonment, including lack of BBC executive scrutiny, no individual senior staff member acting as the single point of accountability, and poor reporting arrangements that were not fit for purpose (BBC 2014). The IS sector is under greater scrutiny than ever before, with executives being all too aware that historical failures have had a dramatic effect on the organizations concerned, both in terms of huge financial cost and business sustainability from the impact of failure (Avison and Wilson 2002; Beynon-Davies 1995; Gauld 2007; McGrath 2002; Mitev 1996; Pan et al. 2008). The continual academic review of project performance within the IS industry is of vital importance until such time the sector can demonstrate step changes in consistently delivering successful outcomes.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Atkinson R (1999) Project management: cost, time and quality, two best guesses and a phenomenon, its time to accept other success criteria. Int J Proj Manag 17(6):337–342
Avison D, Wilson D (2002) IT failure and the collapse of One.Tel. In: Proceedings of the IFIP 17th world computer congress – TC8 stream on information systems: the e-Business challenge, pp 31–46
BBC (2014) BBC was ‘complacent’ over failed £100m IT project. http://www.bbc.co.uk . Accessed on 19 Sept 2014
Beynon-Davies P (1995) Information systems “failure”: the case of the London Ambulance services Computer Aided Despatch project. Eur J Inf Syst 4(3):171–184
Buchanan D, Fitzgerald L, Ketley D, Gollop R, Jones JL, Lamont SS, Neath A, Whitby E (2005) No going back: a review of the literature on sustaining organizational change. Int J Manag Rev 7(3):189–205
Change Management Institute (2014) The effective change manager: the change management body of knowledge (CMBoK). VIVID, Sydney
Cooke-Davies T (2002) The ‘real’ success factors on projects. Int J Proj Manag 20(3):185–190
Dwivedi YK, Henriksen HZ, Wastell D, De’ RM (2013a) Preface. In: Dwivedi YK et al (eds) Grand successes and failures in IT. Public and private sectors. Springer, Berlin, pp 5–9
Dwivedi YK, Wastell D, Henriksen HZ (2015a) Guest editorial: grand successes and failures in IT: private and public sectors. Inf Syst Front 17(1):11–14
Dwivedi YK, Wastell D, Laumer S, Henriksen HZ, Myers MD, Bunker D, Elbanna A, Ravishankar MN, Srivastava SC (2015b) Research on information systems failures and successes: status update and future directions. Inf Syst Front 17(1):143–157
Esa M, Samad Z (2014) Preparing project managers to achieve project success-human related factor. Int J Res Manag Technol 4(2):104–110
Fortune J, White D (2006) Framing of project critical success factors by systems model. Int J Proj Manag 24(1):53–65
Gauld R (2007) Public sector information system failures: lessons from a New Zealand hospital organization. Gov Inf Q 24:102–114
Hornstein H (2015) The integration of project management and organizational change management is now a necessity. Int J Proj Manag 33(2):291–298
Hyvari I (2006) Success of projects in different organizational conditions. Proj Manag J 37(4):31–42
McGrath K (2002) The golden circle: a way of arguing and acting about technology in the London ambulance service. Eur J Inf Syst 11(4):251–266
Mitev NN (1996) More than a failure? The computerized reservation systems at French Railways. Inf Technol People 9(4):8–19
Müller R, Jugdev K (2012) Critical success factors in projects: Pinto, Slevin and Prescott – the elucidation of project success. Int J Manag Proj Bus 5(4):757–775
Pan G, Hackney R, Pan SL (2008) Information systems implementation failure: insights from prism. Int J Inf Manag 28(4):259–269
Parker D, Charlton J, Ribeiro A, Pathak RD (2013) Integration of project-based management and change management – intervention methodology. Int J Product Perform Manag 62(5):534–544
Pettigrew A, Whipp R (1993) Managing change for competitive success. Black, Oxford, pp 269–295
Prosci (2012) Best practices in change management. Prosci benchmarking report. Prosci®, Loveland, CO
Standish Group (2013) CHAOS manifesto think big act small. Boston. Retrieved from http://www.standishgroup.com. Accessed May 2015
Turner JR (2009) The handbook of project-based management: leading strategic change in organizations, 3rd edn. McGraw-Hill, London
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Hughes, D.L., Dwivedi, Y.K., Simintiras, A.C., Rana, N.P. (2016). Introduction. In: Success and Failure of IS/IT Projects. SpringerBriefs in Information Systems. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23000-9_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23000-9_1
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-22999-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-23000-9
eBook Packages: Business and ManagementBusiness and Management (R0)