Project Evaluation: A Mixed-Method Study into Dilemmas in Continuation Decisions

Project evaluations are highly crucial for organizations to manage their information systems and technology project portfolios. This study postulates equivocal situations as the source of dilemmas hindering stakeholders to achieve proper evaluation and purposeful decisions. We examine three factors that are conceived to have high association with equivocal situations when evaluating IS/IT projects, Challenges in project management, Different frames of reference and Lack of evaluation data. The developed model is tested using a survey data of IS/IT professionals through PLS. We find the three factors are significantly affecting the occurrence of equivocal situations with the highest contribution come from the Challenges in project management. Multi-group examinations reveal distinct impacts of the three factors within public versus private sector and high versus low projects in the project evaluation ladder. Post hoc interviews suggest several interesting points especially on how to cope with equivocal situation

The Impact of Human Resource Sharing on IT Project Risk

The increasing number of sophisticated IT projects and the scarcity of skilled human resources increasingly challenge IT project portfolio managers with the need to do ‘more with less’. Consequently, resource sharing among projects provides a widely applied instrument to reduce project costs. However, resource sharing may not only result in cost synergies but also in risk effects. In contrast to cost synergies, these risk effects are rarely considered in business practice and quantification efforts of these risk effects are missing in the literature. Our research is the first to provide a systematic quantitative empirical analysis of the relationships between resource sharing and project risk. We find evidence that projects sharing their human resources are more likely to fall short in their planned scope while being more likely to comply with their planned timeline

SURPRISING ENERGY FUTURES : Neo-Carbon Energy Futures Clinique V

This report describes the process and results of futures clinique Surprising Energy Futures: Anticipating Discontinuities and Testing Resilience of Renewable Energy World with Black Swans, held on 17 May 2017 at Sitra, Helsinki. The event was the fifth futures clinique within the foresight part of the research project Neo-Carbon Enabling Neo-Growth Society – Transformative Scenarios 2050, conducted by Finland Futures Research Centre. The aim of the event was to contribute to the four transformative societal scenarios of Neo-Carbon Energy project. The event consisted of presentations and intermittent working sessions. Dr. Karlheinz Steinmüller discussed the topic of Black Swans and VUCA World, with comments by Prof. Jarno Limnéll

Corporate Real Estate Black Swan Strategy: Beyond Probabilty and Resilience

Corporate organisations operate in a dynamic competitive global environment where real estate decisions form an important part of a successful business operation. Fundamental considerations cover the drivers of possible disruption from core economic activity, structural change and unexpected (black swan) events. With documented increases in the frequency and magnitude of unforeseen, rare and extreme black swan events, this research examines an antifragility corporate real estate strategy that looks beyond likelihood and resilience to opportunities to manage and embrace key adverse known unknown random black swan events. Suggested strategies including modular locational operation units, knowledge sharing and real estate partnerships can form part of an antifragility real estate framework and assist global organisations to succeed where competitors fail in a world affected by increasingly large, highly improbable and unpredictable events

Advancing real estate decision making: Understanding known, unknown and unknowable risks

Whilst existing literature on real estate risk management focusses almost exclusively on holistic risk management techniques, documented increases in frequency and magnitude of unforseen, rare and extreme events can throw up sudden, unexpected shocks that can challenge recognised real estate decision making strategies. To advance real estate decision making practice in this area, this research paper takes the skilfully conceptualised downside risk framework presented by Diebold et al (2010), being the Known (K), the unknown (u) and the Unknowable (U) risk categories, to provide a blueprint for effective real estate decision making in a changing global environment. In recording categories of risk, managing uncertainty can be achieved by an interrelated approach of adaption, robustness and resilience. This is important part of a real estate manager’s decision making toolkit as risk recognition and knowledge of KuU event categories can augment an effective management strategy. The mastery of modern real estate risk management can be better served by understanding and managing extreme downside risk events. Creating a comprehensive risk management framework can enhance comparative real estate performance whereby unprepared competitors fail in a world increasingly affected by large, highly improbable and unpredictable events

Manage Your \u27Blind Flight\u27 - The Optimal Timing for IT Project Re-Evaluation

As the value of an IT project can change over time, management is in blind flight about the state of the project until the project has been re-evaluated. As each evaluation causes costs, continuous evaluation is economically unreasonable. Nevertheless, the blind flight should not take too long, because the project value can considerably deviate from its initial estimation and high losses can occur. To trade off costs of re-evaluation and potential loss of project value, this paper will elaborate upon an economic model that is able to determine the optimal time until re-evaluation considering the risky cash flows of a project. Based on a simulation, we find that it makes good economic sense to optimize the interval of re-evaluation. Therefore, companies are able to avoid financial loss caused by evaluating too early as well as hazarding project value caused by evaluating too late

Learning from failure in conservation: Individual, team, and organizational dynamics

Conservation aims to ensure the persistence of biodiversity despite myriad and mounting threats at the intersection of biological processes and socio-economic activity, and many efforts have struggled to achieve success. Failure is inevitable in the complex contexts in which conservation initiatives take place and yet is largely underexamined. Reasons for this shortcoming are multidimensional, encompassing behavioral and cognitive limitations at the individual, group, and organizational levels. Conservation is recognized as primarily about people and the choices they make, but there is a gap in what we know about how conservation professionals themselves as people operating within teams and organizations learn from and manage failure. My research investigates the current state of failure management in conservation, building upon existing literature in organizational learning and drawing insights from other disciplines to identify ways for conservation to more effectively learn from failure. To do this, I first conduct a literature review to investigate factors contributing to a lack of learning from failure and success in conservation. I find that failure reports are rare and largely unstandardized, and human factors such as stakeholder relationships were the most commonly cited cause of project failure. I then carry out a strategic review of organizational learning literature to provide an inter-disciplinary synthesis of thinking and practice of failure management. Armed with these broad insights, I delve into individual intentions to engage in learning from failure behaviors, finding that social norms, psychological safety, organizational support, and leader behavior play important roles in facilitating learning from failure. To place these individual motivations into a broader context, I then investigate barriers and enabling conditions for learning from failure through a multimethod qualitative study. Finally, I synthesize my findings and provide an operational model and actionable steps going forward. Providing the first empirical examination of failure in conservation, this thesis highlights both shortfalls in failure management in conservation and, more importantly, opportunities to create a learning transformation going forward.Open Acces