Distressed and Failing IS Projects: A Critical Review of the Literature

This research-in-progress paper evaluates the literature regarding distress in information systems (IS) development projects. An IS project is seen as distressed when experiencing critical problems that may ultimately result in project failure. This paper first discusses the notion of IS project distress in contrast to IS project failure and briefly examines corresponding literature. A more detailed review of existing research on IS project distress shows that two different interpretative perspectives—process and narrative—have identified several problems that cause distressed states in IS development projects and ways of responding and coping with such problems. While little attention has been devoted to research on IS project distress, the results of this research stream are highly relevant and valuable for real life project situations. Based on our literature review, we propose shifting research focus towards IS project distress and problematic situations experienced during IS development projects. Keywords IS project distress, IS project success and failure, IS success and failure, failure signals

Distressed and Failing Information Systems Development Projects

The thesis addresses the “classic” but far from resolved problem of high failure rates of information systems development (ISD) projects. The thesis defines and explores the concept of ISD project distress as a troublesome detrimental project condition that threatens the successful completion of projects. Understanding how distress emerges in ISD projects is emphasized as important as distress is “failure in the making” that must be recognized and addressed before the project becomes a failure. Chapter 2’s extensive literature review presents different approaches to studying ISD project failure, revealing that studies pay little attention to the dynamic, unfolding problematic situations in ISD projects. To address this weakness in the literature, this chapter articulates the notion of ISD project distress. A sensemaking theoretical framework is proposed for studying the complex phenomenon of project distress emphasizing its process-based, multi-level, situated nature. With this framework, the chapter’s contribution is to articulate a new research domain and research agenda of ISD project distress with significant implications for theory and practice.Chapter 3 focuses on challenges and problematic situations in ISD projects, seeking to understand the emergence of ISD project distress. Four major themes are presented and analysed based on interviews with experienced ISD project managers. A model of emergence and resolution of project distress is developed and the vicious and virtuous cycles towards ISD project distress are illustrated. The main ideas developed are that problematic situations need to be recognized and correctly identified (through alertness) and appropriately reacted to (through mindfulness). It discusses ISD project “resilience” that increases the chances of identification and resolution of problematic situations, thus avoiding project distress.Chapter 4 presents a historically reconstructed case study of a distressed mobile application development project which became a success. The emergence and resolution of ISD project distress are explained by analysing three episodes (patterns) of interrelated problematic situations which represent different types of interconnections between problematic situations: cascading, lingering and compounding problems. Also illustrated is the way that distress increases and decreases in each episode with the chapter proposing a theoretical model of interrelated problematic situations and ISD project distress