Transcript Managing IS/IT projects

Managing IS/IT Projects
The Group of Geilivable
Fangyuan Lin:
4153516
Jiazhen You:
4168246
Nianxuan Wang: 4152382
Yipeng Zhang:
4152410
Feihong Xu:
4152393
Lehikoinen Antti: 2111135
Introduction
Topic: discuss the IS failure factors based on four famous
cases.
• Firstly, introduce and describe the failure stories, and
assess the level of their success.
• Then, compare these projects to draw out some common
factors regarding the management of the development
process and its relationship to the project outcome.
• Recommendations will be given at the end of the
presentation.
Introduction
• Information systems (IS) are pervasive in all forms of
business organizations.
• Recent studies show that many of these projects have
‘failed’, in the combination of budget and/or schedule
overruns and/or for not meeting users’ requirements.
From the table, we can see only 16% of IS projects
achieved
remaining
84% are ‘‘challenged’’
• The
Chaossuccess,
Report bytheStandish
Group
and “failed” projects.
• Table 1 provides a summarized report card on project
outcomes based on the Report.
4 Cases
We will go through thes cases by following steps:
• The General Story
• The Objective
• The Failure Analysis
Heathrow Terminal 5
The General Story
New
terminal
Software
problems
System failure
Still in
use
The Objectives of T5
• Terminal 5 was built to give the passengers a calmer, smoother, simpler airport
experience, with a super-fast automated baggage handling system.
• Information Systems were a huge concern for the BAA team, because of the
quickness in technological advancements they could not set up the systems and
equipment until the very end of the project, otherwise it would become obsolete or
get stolen.
• Many actions in the terminal had new IT, here are some examples: Airport wireless
services, Flight information boards, Mobile networks, Building management
systems, Security systems.
• IT systems and equipment had to work from day one to get the wanted results in
consumer satisfaction
• Nick Gaines, head of systems for BAA, in 2006 said: “IT systems represent the
largest risk to the project.”
The Outcomes of T5 Project
• Considerable disruption to passengers, so if customers canceled services between
27 March and 7 April they were offered assistance and compensation
• 497 flights canceled in the first 10 days
• 23,205 bags that required manual sorting and screening prior to return to
passengers
• BA estimated that the costs for the problems of first five days of operation being
£16 million
• Foreign secretary David Miliband criticized BA as it emerged that the crisis could
cost the airline £50m.
• UK Under-Secretary of State for Transport, Jim Fitzpatrick said:” National pride
has been dented.”
• Damage to BAA and BA reputation
• Damage to BAA and BA employee motivation
The Analysis of T5 Failure
Preparation
Technical
Qualities
•
•
•
•
Ample time to plan and do research, resulted in clear vision
Had support of the management
Poor communication between players
Not enough user involvement
•
•
Software was made by professionals
E.g. baggage handling system was designed by Vanderlande
Industries with IBM technology and Alstec.
Vanderlandes' products are used in many of the world’s
largest hub airports.
No unproven technology was used
•
•
The
Implementation
•
•
•
•
Multiple mistakes in implementation
Lack of training
Facilities incomplete
Problems were mainly at the start, now systems are operating
well
FBI’s failed Virtual Case
File (VCF) project
The General Story
9/11 terrorist
attacks
New VCF
system
Finally
terminated
Antiquated
ACS system
The Objectives of VCF Project
 Enable FBI agents to scan computer files instead of hardcopy documents, and web-enable the existing
investigative applications.
 Enable FBI agents share cases related data efficiently in
progress, especially terrorist investigations.
 Provide the capability to find information in FBI
databases without having prior knowledge of its location,
and to search all FBI databases with a single query
through the use of search engines.
The Outcomes of VCF Project
 VCF was developed without adequate assessment of
alternative and conformance to various architectural
standard.
 High-level documents were neither complete nor
consistent with users’ needs.
 The requirements and design documentation were
incomplete, imprecise, requirements and design tracings
have gaps, and the software cannot be maintained
without difficulty.
The Analysis of VCF Project
Preparation
• Received the
top
management
support
• Did not well
define the
project’s aims
and mission
Technical
Qualities
• many potential
problems and
lack of
adequate
testing
• The software
had difficulty
with
maintenance.
The
Implementation
• Lack real users’
involvement and
poor
communication
• Received enough
fund to accelerate
project but the
schedule was
unrealistic
• Did not have an
adequate human
resource
The Greyhound Lines
The General Story
Software
Disaster
Low
Efficiency
‘Trips’
System
But
finally
failed
Financial
Distress
The Objectives of ‘Trips’
•
•
•
•
Increasing efficiency
Improving customer services
Making tickets buying convenient
Allow customer to reserve space on specific trip
The Outcome of Trip
•
•
•
•
•
Tickets have to be reissued
The passengers are separated from luggage
Low speed to print tickets
Cost exceeded the expectation
Stock price dropped
The Analysis of ‘Trips’
Failure
Preparation
Technical Qualities
The Implementation
• Clear objectives
• Supported by top managers
• The ‘Trips’ IS system was put
into use without pass the test
• Less training for relevant staff
• Data cannot reflected accurately
• Less communication between
departments
• Users are dissatisfied
London Ambulance Service
The General Story
 Managed by South West Thames Regional Health
Authority.
 Largest ambulance service in the world
 Covers geographical area of over 600 square miles
 Resident population of 6.8 million people (greater during
daytime, especially central London);
 Carries over 5,000 patients every day;
 2,000-2,500 calls received daily, of which 1,300-1,600 are
emergency calls.
The Outcome of LAS project
• Decide to commission the CAD
system in 1990
• Manual system to be replaced
• Automatic vehicle locating
system (AVLS) and mobile data
terminals (MDTs)
• Started 1991, scrapped in 1992 20 lives lost in 2 days
The Analysis of ‘LAS’ Failure
 LAS Manager
 Pressure under ORCON standards
 Contract had to be put out to open tender
 tightness of the timetable(5 months)
 LAS ignore sources outside
 Project group
 No discussion with LAS and project team
 no previous experience
 System
 No testing/overlap with old system
 Lack of robustness
 Poor performance and straightforward bugs or errors
 Users not consulted during design
[Report of the Inquiry Into The London Ambulance Service 1993]
Four major categories of IS
failures
Correspondence
Failure
Process Failure
• When the systems design objectives are not met, the
information system is considered a failure.
• A process failure occurs when an IS cannot be
developed within an allocated budget, and/or time
schedule.
Interaction
Failure
• The level of end-user usage of the information system is
suggested as a surrogate in IS performance
measurement.
Expectation
Failure
• The notion of expectation failure views IS failure as the
inability of a system to meet its stakeholders’
requirements, expectations, or values.
In search of an integrative
framework
• Firstly, to create a systemic framework that is
broad enough to represent a wide range of
possible factors that may impact systems
performance;
• Secondly, to use the framework to delineate and
assess the impact of different classes of
influencing factors.
The Triple-system(S) model
Checkland and Holwell ,
(1998)
Delineating failure factors
• The triple-S framework is used as a basis to
group and analyse a multitude of possible
factors
• The triple-S framework can be perceived as
three spheres of influence (SOI) over project
outcomes.
Delineating failure factors
The three SOI are further operationalized into 10 main issues
of influence (IOI)
Sp Process driven issues
S1 Context driven issues S2 Content driven issues
Related to
1) Business planning
2) Project planning
3) Project management
and control
Related to
1) Corporate culture
2) Corporate management
3) Users
4) Politics
Related to
1) Information technology
2) Business process and
system design
3) IT/IS professional and
knowledge sources
Table 1: Defining ‘Issues of influence’ under the three ‘Spheres of influence’, (Yeo, 2002)
Delineating failure factors
• These issues can be further categorized into hundreds of
factors.
• We selected 8 main factors (shown in table 2) by summarizing
other studies of Umble et al. (2003); Akkermans, (2002); Al—
Mashari et al (2002); Wixom and Watsom, (2001), and Kydd,
(1989).
Sp Process driven issues
S1 Context driven issues
S2 Content driven issues
1) Time & Resources
2) Vision /goals of the
project
1) Top management
1) Technical quality
support
2) Training
2) Cross-functional team / 3) Data accuracy
communication
3) User involvement
Failure factors analysis
Time &
Resources
Case
Vision /goals of
the project
Top
management
support
Cross-functional
team
/communication
User
involvement
Technical
quality
Training
Data
accuracy
Heathrow
Terminal 5
√
√
√
○
×
×
×
×
FBI’s VCF
project
○
×
√
×
×
×
×
×
Greyhound
Lines
×
√
○
×
×
×
×
×
London
Ambulance
Service
×
√
○
×
×
×
×
×
Table 3
Failure factors analysis
Ranking
1
2
Factor
Vision /goals of the
project
Top management
support
Heathrow
Terminal 5
FBI’s VCF
project
Greyhound
Lines
London
Ambulance
Service
√
×
√
√
√
√
○
○
3
Time & Resources
√
○
×
×
4
Cross-functional team
/ communication
○
×
×
×
5
User involvement
×
×
×
×
5
Technical quality
×
×
×
×
5
Training
5
Data accuracy
×
×
×
×
×
×
×
×
Table 4
Failure factors analysis
• All the cases, expect FBI have clear goals of the
project. E.g. FBI
• All the projects are supported by the top
management to some extent. E.g. Greyhound
• For time and resources factor, only Heathrow’s
case did well.
• In terms of cross- functional communication, none
of the four cases did well.
Failure factors analysis
• Finally, User involvement, Technical quality,
Training and Data accuracy are the common factors
which lead to the failure of the projects.
• Use the case of FBI’s VCF project
 VCF system was not perfect since 59 problems are identified,
 High-level documents were neither complete nor consistent
 What’s worse, the lack of extensive prototyping and usability
testing with real users leaded to less attention on users’ real
feedback and needs.
Failure factors analysis
• Moreover, we found that all factors under S2
sphere of influence did unsuccessfully.
Failure factors analysis
• S2 is dealing with "what" and "how" in technology
and business process (re)design.
• However, it lacks of an adequate professional
human resource in many companies
• Alternatively, they turn to outsource there IS
projects.
• In all four cases, their projects were outsourced
E.g. Heathrow Terminal 5
Recommendation
• For the achievement of survival, companies
should act on the environment so as to obtain
necessary resources (funding) that in turn
support the system’s continued operations.
• The model from Sauer (1993) takes the
natural systems approach and explains
systems behaviour in terms of the goal of
survival.
Recommendation
Figure: Triangle of Dependences
(Sauer, 1993)
Recommendation
• The concept first considers information system as
a product of a coalition of stakeholders
• The project organization is able to carry out its
work, ideally with a view to serve the interest of
the supporters
• A system is not considered a failure as long as it
survives and continues to attract support in
resources.
Reference
•
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•
Al-Mashari, M., Al-Mashari, A. and Zairi, M. (2002), Enterprise resource planning: A taxonomy of critical factors, European
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•
Checkland, P. and Holwell S. (1998), Information, systems and information systems, Chichester, UK: John Wiley
•
Kydd, C.T. (1989, Understanding the Information Content in MIS Management Tools, MIS Quarterly, 13(3), pp. 277-290.
•
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•
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•
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•
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