Success and failure factors in ICT projects: a Dutch perspective.

This thesis examines the success and failure factors in ICT projects. The low success rate of software projects in terms of reliability, meeting due dates and working within assigned budgets is widely recognised and topical. International as well as Dutch publications and the procedures in Tarek Abdel-Hamid's work on Software Project Management/Dynamics are discussed. A SUFFI Chart (SUFFI = SUccess and Failure Factors in ICT projects) is developed. The management of a portfolio of projects is compared with the SUFFI Chart. A number of Dutch projects with which the author was directly involved are examnined to show how they compare with the factors identified from the literature. These do show considerable correlation between important SUFFI factors and project success. The portfolio consists of nine ICT projects and four ICT project audits. Projects such as SAP, RBAC, EAI, charging method, PABX, financial building adrnmistration, information retrieval, book reservations, traffic data collection, introduction of the Internet functionality and SOX, for different companies/organisations (Delft University of Technology, National Police Services Agency, KPN - Dutch Telecom Company, University of Amsterdam, government, banking). This work shows that for a successful project 4 of the 5 most important SUFFIs have to be absent

Environmental Management for Agriculture (EMA) and Sustainable Agriculture

John Tzilivakis and Kathleen Lewis, ‘Environmental Management for Agriculture (EMA) and Sustainable Agriculture’, paper presented at the 2nd European Conference of the European Federation for Information Technology in Agriculture, Food and the Environment, 27 – 30 September 1999, Bonn, Germany.Submitted Versio

The Role of Evidence in Establishing Trust in Repositories

This article arises from work by the Digital Curation Centre (DCC) Working Group examining mechanisms to roll out audit and certification services for digital repositories in the United Kingdom. Our attempt to develop a program for applying audit and certification processes and tools took as its starting point the RLG-NARA Audit Checklist for Certifying Digital Repositories. Our intention was to appraise critically the checklist and conceive a means of applying its mechanics within a diverse range of repository environments. We were struck by the realization that while a great deal of effort has been invested in determining the characteristics of a 'trusted digital repository', far less effort has concentrated on the ways in which the presence of the attributes can be demonstrated and their qualities measured. With this in mind we sought to explore the role of evidence within the certification process, and to identify examples of the types of evidence (e.g., documentary, observational, and testimonial) that might be desirable during the course of a repository audit.

PARTICULARITIES OF QUALITY EVALUATION IN A SOFTWARE COMPANY

Quality management is a management domain very discussed and disputed nowadays and this is the first sign it is a very modern, needed and present concept in theory and practice. Some are seeing it as a solution to prepare things in the way they are needed, and the instrument which might guarantee a proper environment of keeping them in a specified and constant form. The application of quality management is a quality management system that has to be designed, developed and implemented to achieve the aim of quality. The article has the purpose to briefly present what a quality management system should mean in a software company, why it should be periodically evaluated and how it might be done. In the second part it points out the characteristics of the audit as a general evaluation instrument and the main contribution consists on the author’s endeavor to mark out the particularities of an audit process carried out on a software company, considering the fact that particularization increases the changes to easier and earlier succeed with such an activity on a practical basis.Management, quality management, software quality, quality evaluation, quality audit

The Data Audit Framework: a toolkit to identify research assets and improve data management in research led institutions

Although vast quantities of data are being created within higher education, few institutions have formal strategies in place for curating these research outputs in the longterm. Moreover there appears to be a lack of awareness as to exactly what data are held and whether they are being managed. In response to these concerns the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) issued a call for proposals to develop and implement a Data Audit Framework suited to the needs of the UK higher education research communities. The Data Audit Framework (DAF) Development project was funded to produce an audit methodology, online toolkit, and a registry. Four additional implementation projects were funded to test the toolkit and promote its uptake. This paper outlines the audit methodology, introduces the online toolkit, and provides feedback on implementing the Data Audit Framework.

Strategic Communications Audits

Nonprofit organizations are now continuously being challenged to be more strategic in their communications efforts. Communications activities must add up to more than a series of isolated events such as the dissemination of an occasional publication or press release. Being strategic requires that nonprofits be more deliberate, innovative, savvy, and less reactive in their communications practice. Nonprofits are encouraged to regard communications as essential to their overall success and integrate it throughout their organizations.1As a result of this movement, an array of new tools, resources, and trainings have been developed to help organizations better understand the concept of strategic communications, develop their own communications strategies, and evaluate them for both accountability and learning purposes. But while nonprofits are learning how to develop strategies and are gaining a better understanding of their importance, questions remain about their actual follow through in practice and nonprofits' overall capacity to implement their strategies given their relative inexperience in this field and the many priorities, including communications, that often compete for scarce organizational resources