Project Success in Agile Development Projects

The paper explains and clarifies the differences between Waterfall and Agile development methodologies, establishes what criteria could be taken into account to properly define project success within the scope of software development projects, and finally tries to clarify if project success is the reason why many organizations are moving to Agile methodologies from other ones such as Waterfall. In the form of a literature review, it analyses several, publications, investigations and case studies that point out the motives why companies moved to Agile, as well as the results they observed afterward. It also analyses overall statistics of project outcomes after companies evolved from traditional methodologies such as Waterfall to Agile development approaches

Enterprise System Renewal - The Divergence Between Perception and Reality

E-commerce based companies rely on the effective use of the information systems used to support their processes. Accordingly, managers place a great emphasis on the success of projects to introduce such systems. However, research increasingly suggests that project success may not be as objective as one would assume or hope. Quite contrary, as our work will show, project success is often constructed by the stakeholders involved in the project. Extending prior research, we investigate how different groups of stakeholders construct their own perception of project success and how these different perceptions influence each other. Through our work, we provide management with insights into threats to a reliable project management approach for critical IS projects and identify a few major drivers that need to be accounted for to make sure that such critical projects really are successful

Implementing Success Management and PRINCE2 in a BPM Public Project

Many stages of information systems projects developed in public institutions are defined by laws and regulations, which reduces management flexibility. In the particular case of Business Process Management (BPM) projects, it has even more influence since the business processes are also constrained by legislation. In this context, it is important to have a clear vision of what the project’s success means for all the stakeholders, what can impact the success, and how success should be evaluated. This paper presents the case of a BPM project of a public institution, where it is being implemented a new PRINCE2-based project management approach comprising success management activities. The preliminary results include a new model that integrates success management and the PRINCE2 methodology, as well as a set of success criteria and success factors identified for the project

Success Management and the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK): An Integrated Perspective

It is a significant challenge to define and achieve success in information systems project management, given the high number and diversity of involved stakeholders and variables that need to be taken into account by project managers and their teams. Project management standards and guides are valuable in this context, as they provide concepts, processes and techniques related to several complementary knowledge areas (e.g., cost, quality, risk, etc.). However, they do not explicitly define what needs to be done towards managing the success of a project (including, for instance, the formal evaluation of success). To address this gap, we propose a new model for the integration of the success management activities into the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) guide. To this end, a Design Science Research process has been adopted. The research is in progress and the resulting model is currently being evaluated in information systems projects

Enterprise Systems in Transition Economies: An Initial Literature Review

In spite of the fact that enterprise systems have become essential in modern organizations, there is a scarcity of research on this topic in the context of transition economies, defined as countries that are in the process of moving or have recently moved from a centrally planned economic system to a market-driven system. In this initial study, we conduct a review of 27 journal papers on enterprise systems in transition economies published in the years 2004-2014. We examine the research focus, research approach, and theoretical foundation. Based on the analysis of themes and current trends in the existing literature we identify gaps and propose opportunities for future research

The Proposed Research Model for Successful ERP Implementation in Indian Manufacturing Sector

The purpose of this paper is to identify critical success factors, risk factors, product selection factor, project management success factors, user satisfaction, tangible benefit and intangible benefits from the literature and propose a conceptual framework for successful ERP implementation in Indian manufacturing sector. The proposed model will give implementers the better understanding of ERP implementation in manufacturing sector. The benefit of this research will be to identify the areas responsible for successful implementation and show the outcome of the implementation in terms of project management success metrics like scope, functionality, budget and schedule. This will result in avoiding implementation mistakes thereby increasing the success rate

Customer Satisfaction in IS Projects: Assessing the Role of Process and Product Performance

Despite extensive research over the past several decades, assessing information system (IS) project success is still a challenging endeavor. While the traditional approach takes process performance (time and budget) and product performance (functional and non-functional requirements) into account, the contemporary perspective acknowledges the more comprehensive character of project success and emphasizes the criticality of stakeholder satisfaction. Continuing previous research, we propose and test a model with customer satisfaction as the uppermost criterion of IS project success and process performance and product performance as its determinants. Following recent calls for researchers to investigate the explicit linkage between success factors and success criteria, we also analyze the influence of process transparency on process and product performance. We conducted a survey via a questionnaire with IS experts in Germany. We contribute to a deeper understanding of IS project success by indicating that customer satisfaction is less a matter of time and budget and that a stronger emphasis should be placed on product performance. Moreover, our results illuminate the role of process transparency in IS projects showing that it contributes to both process and product performance

The characteristics of successful military IT projects: a cross-country empirical study

In the armed forces, successful digitalization is crucial to ensure effective operations. Much of the existing literature on project factors during the planning and execution phases of public IT projects do not focus specifically on military sector projects. Therefore, the paper aims to provide empirical insights into the characteristics of successful military IT projects. Data from such projects in NATO countries and agencies were collected through interviews and project documents. The findings relating to the main variable of interest, “delivery of client benefit,” supported previous findings on IT project performance. Medium-sized projects performed better than small and large projects, and the agile development method delivered more client benefit than traditional methods. Client involvement apparently had a positive effect on project success. Clearly specified objectives had a statistically significant effect on project success in terms of clients’ benefits. The paper contributes to the gap in research on military IT projects and broadens the project management literature’s focus on time and cost to include delivery of client benefit as a success variable. The use of cross-country data provided unique insights for academics and practitioners regarding which project characteristics affect the successful development and adoption of new software by the armed forces

Criteria of Successful IT Projects from Management's Perspective

The aim of this paper is to compile a model of IT project success from management's perspective. Therefore, a qualitative research approach is proposed by interviewing IT managers on how their companies evaluate the success of IT projects. The evaluation of the survey provides fourteen success criteria and four success dimensions. This paper also thoroughly analyzes which of these criteria the management considers especially important and which ones are being missed in daily practice. Additionally, it attempts to identify the relevance of the discovered criteria and dimensions with regard to the determination of IT project success. It becomes evident here that the old-fashioned Iron Triangle still plays a leading role, but some long-term strategical criteria, such as value of the project, customer perspective or impact on the organization, have meanwhile caught up or pulled even