Applying systems thinking in business process re-engineering for information technology projects: a case study of the university in South Africa.

Masters Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.This study was a qualitative case study which examined strategies of infusing systems thinking in business process re-engineering (BPR) on information technology (IT) projects at a public university in South Africa. The university seeks to effectively cope with complex and messy situations in pursuit of process improvement by enabling holistic and systematic problem solving for sustainable solutions for BPR IT projects. The university under study relies on IT projects to enable seamless services to the university community while providing education digitally and effortlessly to all the university stakeholders such as students. This study contributed to understanding the interrelatedness, interconnectedness and interdependency of parts of the university as a system-in-focus, and that the sub-optimisation of one part may cripple other parts. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, questionnaires and document analysis and the data collected were analysed in themes. This project added value in BPR IT projects when the projects are initiated and implemented by incorporate systems thinking. The study has also highlighted the inability of reductionism to deal with complexity, change, unpredictability and uncertainty. As new managerialism continues to be infused in public institutions such as the universities, the study has assisted in enhancing our understanding of how complex the university is. This historical but paradigmatic study, which promoted creative holism, has contributed through its findings and recommendations, to the body of knowledge on the re-engineering of business processes in IT projects in order to reduce challenges experienced when initiating and implementing BPR projects in the public university in South Africa. Given these issues, the study recommends that systems thinking should be infused with BPR IT projects at the public university in South Africa, to effectively deal with the complex challenges faced by BPR IT projects at the public university

The use of the systems thinking approaches to develop a holistic model to improve stakeholder management in the eThekwini Water and Sanitation unit (EWS)

Doctoral Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.Challenges faced by the eThekwini Municipality’s Water and Sanitation Unit (EWS) in implementing water and sanitation projects include competing interests among various stakeholder groups who see water services from different perspectives and have varying expectations from infrastructure project execution. Soft issues, including stakeholder relationships, communication, and community participation, have been ignored. The study places more attention on soft issues and relationship management since it sees project stakeholder management in the water service as a complicated and messy system. This study employed qualitative research, together with soft systems methodology (SSM), for data collection and analysis. SSM was chosen because of its flexible, but systematized, process that is useful in clarifying the issues in a problematic situation. In-depth semi-structured interviews were used to collect data in this qualitative research. A total of thirty-four participants were involved in this study. This involved conducting intensive individual interviews with fourteen participants to explore their perspectives on stakeholder management in the EWS infrastructure projects. The other twenty participants, divided into four focus groups, participated in the SSM workshop. Data was analysed using NVivo 12, which assisted the researcher in thematic analysis. The combination of qualitative methodology and SSM facilitated a meaningful interaction between the researcher and the study participants, by providing a chance for participants to understand each other’s perspectives, challenges and opportunities, in infrastructure projects. The study found that there is a lack of proper communication between the EWS officials and project stakeholders, as well as the fragmentation of social facilitation systems within the unit. This was confirmed by the findings from the SSM workshop. Stakeholder management was also identified as a crucial soft issue and the lack thereof hinders the progress and sustainability of infrastructure projects. The study, therefore, recommends the implementation of the developed holistic model and formalisation of systems. This model consists of the implementation process, which includes identifying stakeholders prior to project implementation; communicating project boundaries with stakeholders; and ensuring that project stakeholder committees are in place to enforce consistency and improve relationships; as well as ensuring that risk mitigation is prioritised