Abstract
An effective project governance framework enables the project stakeholders to take the right actions to guide a project to success, and an efficient governance framework does so elegantly by a minimum number of actions necessary for the project success. Project governance provides direction in identifying the critical elements for project success and with techniques to measure its progress. There are several standards and tools available for the management of IT projects, yet there is an increase in the number of projects failing to attain the objective, deadline and budget. Complexities and uncertainties have increased in IT projects with the need to achieve innovation and the need for using emergent technologies. This situation makes it difficult for project proponents to assure project governance approaches for success. This article first analyses IT project life cycle activities and various reported IT project successes and failures. Then the systems thinking approach is applied to synthesise factors that can lead to failure at each stage of a project lifecycle. This information is then mapped to a complex system governance model to identify the order in which activities should be performed to obtain optimal results irrespective of the nature of the project.
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
Locatelli, G., Mancini, M., Romano, E.: Systems engineering to improve the governance in complex project environments. Int. J. Proj. Manag. 32(8), 1395–1410 (2014)
Pourdehnad, J.: Synthetic (integrative) project management: an idea whose time has come. Bus. Strat. Ser. 8(6), 426–434 (2007)
Muller, R.: Project Governance. Routledge, New York (2017)
Pyster, A., Olwell, D.H., Hutchison, N., Enck, S., Anthony Jr., J.F., Henry, D.: Guide to the systems engineering body of knowledge (SEBoK) v. 1.0. 1. Guide to the Systems Engineering Body of Knowledge (SEBoK) (2012)
Kapsali, M.: Systems thinking in innovation project management: a match that works. Int. J. Proj. Manag. 29(4), 396–407 (2011)
Kossiakoff, A., Sweet, W.N., Seymour, S.J., Biemer, S.M.: Systems Engineering: Principles and Practice, 2nd edn. Wiley Online Library (2011)
Beasley, R.: 4.3. 1 the barriers to systems thinking. In: INCOSE International Symposium, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 517–531. Wiley Online Library (2012)
PMI: A guide to the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK guide). Project Management Institute (2011)
Ogunlana, S.O.: Beyond the ‘iron triangle’: Stakeholder perception of key performance indicators (KPIs) for large-scale public sector development projects. Int. J. Proj. Manag. 28(3), 228–236 (2010)
Shenhar, A.J., Dvir, D., Levy, O., Maltz, A.C.: Project success: a multidimensional strategic concept. Long Range Plan. 34(6), 699–725 (2001)
Han, W.S., Yusof, A.M., Ismail, S., Aun, N.C.: Reviewing the notions of construction project success. Int. J. Bus. Manag. 7(1), 90 (2012)
Standish Group: CHAOS Report: 21st Anniversary Edition (2014). https://www.standishgroup.com/sample_research_files/CHAOSReport2014.pdf
Gupta, S.K., Gunasekaran, A., Antony, J., Gupta, S., Bag, S., Roubaud, D.: Systematic literature review of project failures: current trends and scope for future research. Comput. Ind. Eng. 127, 274–285 (2019)
Dwivedi, Y.K., et al.: IS/IT project failures: a review of the extant literature for deriving a taxonomy of failure factors. In: International Working Conference on Transfer and Diffusion of IT, pp. 73–88. Springer (2013)
Antony, J., Gupta, S.: Top ten reasons for process improvement project failures. Int. J. Lean Six Sigma 10(1), 367–374 (2019)
Taherdoost, H., Keshavarzsaleh, A.: A theoretical review on IT project success/failure factors and evaluating the associated risks (2018)
Chow, T., Cao, D.-B.: A survey study of critical success factors in agile software projects. J. Syst. Softw. 81(6), 961–971 (2008)
Too, E.G., Weaver, P.: The management of project management: a conceptual framework for project governance. Int. J. Proj. Manag. 32(8), 1382–1394 (2014)
Keating, C.B., Bradley, J.M.: Complex system governance reference model. Int. J. Syst. Syst. Eng. 6(1–2), 33–52 (2015)
Cellucci, C.: The analytic-synthetic method. In: Rethinking Logic: Logic in Relation to Mathematics, Evolution, and Method, pp. 75–94. Springer (2013)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Yesudas, R., Efatmaneshnik, M., Joiner, K. (2020). Identifying Focal Points in IT Project Governance Using a Synthetic and Systems Thinking Approach. In: Boy, G., Guegan, A., Krob, D., Vion, V. (eds) Complex Systems Design & Management. CSDM 2019. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34843-4_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34843-4_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-34842-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-34843-4
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)