The Role of Time Pressure in Software Projects: A Literature Review and Research Agenda

The finding that deadlines affect work in organizational settings holds particularly true for software projects, which are usually conducted under time pressure. While the role of time pressure in software projects has been extensively studied, the findings yielded are diverse. Some authors report a positive relationship between time pressure and software project outcomes, while others find it to be negative or to follow an inverted U-shape pattern. Since many aspects concerning time pressure remain unexplained and its relationship with project outcomes is more complex than it might seem at first glance, we synthesize pertinent research to develop a research agenda aimed at improving the understanding in this domain. Our literature review shows a variety of time pressure conceptualizations, research approaches, and research contexts. The results reveal an inconsistent picture of time pressure’s impact on software projects. Our research agenda includes five themes we deem beneficial to consider in future research

A Systematic Mapping of Factors Affecting Accuracy of Software Development Effort Estimation

Software projects often do not meet their scheduling and budgeting targets. Inaccurate estimates are often responsible for this mismatch. This study investigates extant research on factors that affect accuracy of software development effort estimation. The purpose is to synthesize existing knowledge, propose directions for future research, and improve estimation accuracy in practice. A systematic mapping study (a comprehensive review of existing research) is conducted to identify such factors and their impact on estimation accuracy. Thirty-two factors assigned to four categories (estimation process, estimator’s characteristics, project to be estimated, and external context) are identified in a variety of research studies. Although the significant impact of several factors has been shown, results are limited by the lack of insight into the extent of these impacts. Our results imply a shift in research focus and design to gather more in-depth insights. Moreover, our results emphasize the need to argue for specific design decisions to enable a better understanding of possible influences of the study design on the credibility of the results. For software developers, our results provide a useful map to check the assumptions that undergird their estimates, to build comprehensive experience databases, and to adequately staff design projects

Ladder to Success – Eliciting Project Managers’ Perceptions of IS Project Success Criteria

The traditional approach to assess information system (IS) project success is adherence to planning (ATP) – meeting budget, schedule, and requirements targets. Today, scholars agree that ATP is insufficient to adequately assess IS project success, but an agreed-on set of success criteria is still missing. Many works on this topic are based on theoretical considerations rather than empirical inquiries. We analyze practitioners’ subjective perspectives by investigating what criteria IS project managers consider relevant for IS project success assessment. We interview eleven experienced project managers in Germany, applying Repertory Grid and Laddering to minimize potential biases. Our results yield eight success criteria, indicating that criteria like process efficiency and stakeholder satisfaction must be considered in addition to ATP. Scholars can use our findings to apply the identified success criteria in future studies. Practitioners gain insights into the expert perspective on project success and might rethink the way of assessing success in their projects

The Nature of Adherence to Planning – Systematic Review of Factors Influencing its Suitability as Criterion for IS Project Success

Derived from engineering, adherence to planning (ATP) is the central and most often used criterion for the evaluation of information system (IS) projects. Although this evaluation is questionable, as ATP does not account for all of IS projects’ particularities, a systematic evaluation of ATP’s suitability in the context of IS projects is still missing. As a first step to close this gap, we use aggregations of the project life cycle’s processes and conduct a systematic literature review to identify research dealing with these aggregations. Our results show that ATP’s suitability depends on an IS project’s context, and is not given or at least questionable in many cases. Researchers and managers should adapt the way of evaluating IS projects to avoid misleading implications

The Nature of Adherence to Planning as Criterion for Information System Project Success

Derived from engineering, adherence to planning (ATP) is the central and most often used criterion for the evaluation of information system (IS) projects. Although this evaluation is questionable as ATP does not account for all of IS projects\u27 particularities, a systematic approach for the assessment of ATP\u27s suitability in the context of IS projects is still missing. We propose a theory to explain the suitability of using ATP as success criterion for IS projects. Thereby, we use the project life cycle\u27s processes and their outcomes as the theory\u27s primary constructs. We argue for the constructs\u27 interdependencies corroborated by a systematic literature review. Our results show that ATP\u27s suitability is not given or at least questionable in many cases. Researchers and managers should adapt the way of evaluating IS projects to avoid misleading implications

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

Project Managers’ Perceptions of IS Project Success Criteria – A Repertory Grid and Laddering Investigation

The traditional approach to assess information system (IS) project success is adherence to planning (ATP) – meeting budget, schedule, and requirements. Today, scholars agree that ATP is insufficient to adequately assess IS project success, but an agreed-on set of success criteria is still missing. Many works on this topic are based on theoretical considerations rather than empirical inquiries. We analyze practitioners’ perspective by investigating which criteria IS project managers consider relevant for IS project success assessment. We interview eleven experienced project managers in Germany, applying Repertory Grid and laddering to minimize potential biases. Our results yield eight success criteria, indicating that criteria like process efficiency and stakeholder satisfaction must be considered beside ATP. Scholars can use our findings applying the identified success criteria in future studies. Practitioners gain insights into the expert perspective on project success and might rethink the way of assessing success in their projects

Eliminating Failure by Learning from It – Systematic Review of IS Project Failure

Researchers analyzing project success and failure emphasize the prevailing challenge of successfully completing information system (IS) projects. We conduct an extensive systematic literature review of factors that contributed to failure of real-life IS projects. Our resulting overview entails 54 failure factors, which we grouped in 10 categories applying data-driven qualitative content analysis. We extend our holistic overview by linking the factors to specific project failure dimensions and integrating a stakeholder perspective to account for failure responsibility. Our analysis yields widely acknowledged failure factors like insufficient stakeholder involvement as well as less common factors like history of prior successes. Researchers gain insights into project failure factors along with responsible stakeholders and affected failure dimensions, and can use our overview to identify factors or areas of concern to guide future research. Our overview provides a pillar for IS practitioners to learn from others and to eliminate failure by avoiding past mistakes

Influence of Communication on Client Satisfaction in Information System Projects – An Expectation-Confirmation Approach

The problem of adequately measuring success of information system (IS) projects has not been sufficiently solved. Whereas the traditional approach of assessing IS project success in terms of adherence to budget, schedule and requirements is said to be insufficient, there is lack of agreement on a multidimensional approach using further or different criteria. As success is seen as matter of perspective, project stakeholders’ subjective perceptions of project success are supposed to be important criteria. Thereby, especially the satisfaction of the client organisation is relevant as it is crucial for the contractor’s reputation and assignments of follow-up projects. However, IS developing companies and success reports predominantly assess IS project success using only the objective adherence-to-planning criteria. We believe that client satisfaction in IS projects highly depends on the confirmation of client’s expectations concerning project (process and product) performance. We thus apply the Expectation-Confirmation Theory (ECT) to the context of IS projects aiming to explain the satisfaction of the client organisation. As managing expectations may influence satisfaction, we extend the ECT by client-vendor communication. We assume that client-vendor communication manages expectations, that is, it moderates the relationship between expectation and confirmation. We present and argue for our hypothesized model and according measures for a quantitative analysis. As our study is one of few focussing on the client perspective, we propose an innovative approach to further improve the understanding of IS project success

SYSTEMATIC APPROACHES FOR ORGANISATIONAL LEARNING - A LITERATURE REVIEW

The activity of developing high-quality information systems (IS) is a highly volatile and knowledge- intensive process. Nonetheless, only few IS developing companies seem to be advanced in evaluating and processing their knowledge. Despite a variety of existing approaches, there is no systematic overview of these and how far they support organisational learning. We conduct a systematic literature review of highly ranked journals and relevant textbooks to provide such an overview. We provide a list of eight systematic learning approaches and analyse how they contribute to the activities of knowledge creation, retention and transfer. Thereby, we aim to improve the current situation of organisational learning in IS developing companies. Whereas organisations need to become more open to systematic organisational learning approaches, research is in need to evaluate existing approaches and develop holistic strategies for building learning organisations