Despite efforts from IT practitioners as well as from IS researchers to assist organizations in adopting IT, a majority of IS projects fail. What is the state of the art in "failing"? Is it getting better? Do we learn from our mistakes? Learn all about it in this presentation.

1. © Jan Devos - 1 Projectbeheer: kan het beter? Mislukking of succes? Stand van zaken Jan Devos ELIT-Lab & Industrial Management Faculty of Engineering Ghent University Graaf Karel De Goedelaan 5 BE-8500 KORTRIJK - BELGIUM T: +32 56 24 12 72 F: +32 56 24 12 24 e-mail: jan.devos@howest.be e-mail: jgdvos.devos@ugent.be linkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jangdevos website: http://ela.howest.be/jdevos

2. IS Failures © Jan Devos - 2 Recent paper (18 May 2010) Project failure en masse: a study of loose budgetary control in ISD projects K. Conboy (NUI Galway, Ireland) This paper represents a case of extreme information systems development (ISD) failure en masse, where all but two of the 22 projects in a business unit went over budget, causing senior executives to refocus their strategic priorities and cancel all current and potential projects that followed. This study focuses specifically on the two best performing (12 and 4% under budget) and worst performing (223 and 320% over budget) of these projects. European Journal of Information Systems (2010) 19, 273-287. doi:10.1057/ejis.2010.7; published online 18 May 2010

3. © Jan Devos - 3

4. Hit Parade of IS Failures

6. A lot of research for almost 45 years

7. 1967, Management misinformationsystems, (Ackoff)

8. 2010, Project failure en masse: a study of loose budgetary control in ISD projects (Conboy)

9. Much is known - less is done !

10. 1975 / 1995, The mythical Man-Month (Brooks)

11. Failure to learn ? CIOs - IS-Researchers

12. 1999, Learning failure in information systems development (Lyytinen & Robey)

13. MISQ, EJIS, ISR, JAIS, …IS Failures © Jan Devos - 5

14. WhatareIS Failures ? © Jan Devos - 6 Engineering Failures?

15. WhatareIS Failures? © Jan Devos - 7 An IS Failure is an outcome of a human process

16. Standish Group

19. How do we measure failures & successes ?

20. How do we prevent from failure ? Or how do we conduct successful IT projects ?

22. Project Runaways (Ewusi-Mensah, Keil) & Project Abandonment

23. IS Project Runaways = Escalation of commitment

24. IS project abandonment is defined as a phenomenon that concerned with the anticipated failure of the project prior to its full implementation

25. Outsourcing failures (Devos)

26. Moral Hazard: lost of trust

27. Adverse Selection: Lemon Markets

29. Process failures

31. schenkt weinig aandacht aan zijn omgeving

32. kan niet goed zijn aandacht bij één zaak houden (concentratiegebrek)

33. geeft onvoldoende aandacht aan details

34. lijkt vaak niet te luisteren als hij/zij direct wordt aangesproken

35. antwoordt vaak al uit voordat de vragen afgemaakt

36. verstoort vaak bezigheden van anderen of dringt zich op (bijvoorbeeld mengt zich zomaar in gesprekken)ManagerialAttention Deficit & Disorder (MADD) © Jan Devos - 12

37. Research on IS failures high Mum Effect bad news is transmitted less frequently than good news low high low DeafEffect reluctance to hear bad news Blowing the whistle on troubled software projects (Keil, 2001)

38. Moral Hazard (Opportunisticbehavior) Trust versus Control AdverseSelection (Lemon Markets) 2009, IT Governance in SMEs: Trust or Control? (Devos et al.) 2011, The Theory of the Lemon Markets in IS Research (Devos et al.) Outsourced IS Failures © Jan Devos - 14

39. LemonMarket © Jan Devos - 15 ICT = €1 = €0.1

40. LemonMarket © Jan Devos - 16 €1 ? €0.1

41. LemonMarket © Jan Devos - 17 €0.55 - €1 = -€45 €0.55 €0.55 - €0.1 = €0.45

42. LemonMarket © Jan Devos - 18 €0.55 €0.55 - €0.1 = €0.45 €0.55 - €0.1 = €0.45 €0.55 - €0.1 = €0.45

43. LemonMarket © Jan Devos - 19 €0.23 €0.23- €0.1 = €0.13 €0.23 - €0.1 = €0.13 €0.23 - €0.1 = €0.13

44. Research on IS failures - HOW? Resistance against change 1983 Power, Politics and MIS implementation (Markus) 20 years later: - 2003, "Computers can land people on Mars, why can't they get them to work in a hospital?" - Implementation of an Electronic Patient Record System in a UK Hospital (Jones) - 2004, Informating the Clan: Controlling Physicians' Costs and Outcomes (Kohli & Kettinger) © Jan Devos - 20

45. Organizational Change Nov. 2010 © Jan Devos - 21

46. Organizational Change

48. Alternativeapproaches to PM

49. Real Options

50. HRO© Jan Devos - 23

51. Alternative approaches to PM PM does not guaranteed success nor eliminates failures PM too much focused on ‘how-to-do’ Management of meaningiso management of control ? Critical perspective on projects: focus on values (technology is not neutral), ethics and morality equally important than efficiency & effectiveness ? Research on SMEs: Trust vs Control ? (Devos, 2009) “Political” PLC 2003, The chimpanzees’ tea party: a new metaphor for project manager (Drummond & Hodgson) 2006, New Possibilities for Project Management Theory: A Critical Engagement (Cicmil & Hodgson) © Jan Devos - 24

52. PLC and the ‘Political’ PLC Inception Wild enthusiasm Termination Promotion of non-participants Conception Disillusionment PLC Implementation Punishment of the innocent Requirements Total confusion “P”PLC Design & Dev. Search for the guilty © Jan Devos - 25

54. Future revenue streams are unclear (unsuccessful ?)

55. Invest now – harvest later

56. An initial expenditure on IT creates the right, but not the obligation to obtain the benefits associated with further development

57. Management has the freedom to cancel, defer, restart, or expand the projectBenaroch, M. and R.J. Kauffman, “A Case for Using Real Options Pricing Analysis to Evaluate Information Technology Project Investments,” Information Systems Research, 10 (1), 1999, pp. 70-86. John A. Campbell, Real options analysis of the timing of IS investment decisions, Information and Management, v.39 n.5, p.337-344, March 2002 © Jan Devos - 26

60. Preoccupation with failure (“Failure is not an option”)

62. Commitment to resilience (“continuous management of fluctuations”)© Jan Devos - 28

64. The expectation of surprise is an organizational resource because it promotes attentiveness and discovery

65. Anomalous events should be treated as outcomes rather than as accidents, to encourage search for sources and causes

66. Errors should be made as conspicuous as possible to undermine self-deception and concealment

67. Reliability requires diversity, duplication, overlap, and a varied response repertoire, whereas efficiency requires homogeneity, specialization, non-redundancy and standardisation

68. Interpersonal skills are just as important in HROs as are technical skills © Jan Devos - 29

69. End Questions ? © Jan Devos - 30