Delays in It Projects Caused by Failures in the Management of Stakeholders

Abstract

The Information Technology (IT) has undergone profound and rapid changes in recent decades. In this context, organizations must be prepared to implement these technologies, on the form of projects, as quickly and effectively as possible, providing results before its competitors. Therefore, it can be noted that the delivery of a project on time, ever shorter, is essential. Considering these observations, the main purpose of this study is to explore how failures in IT project stakeholder management may impact, directly or indirectly, the deadlines of these projects. The empirical research, qualitative in nature, is of the exploratory type and counted with the participation of IT project managers and managers of IT project managers, who answered a semi structured interview and provided documents in support of the research.The transcripts of the interviews as well as the provided documents were used for the analysis of data content. As a final result of this study, the main failures in the stakeholder management that may compromisemostly indirectly -the timely delivery of IT projects are identified and explored.Key words: Stakeholders, projects, Information Technology, deadlines, failures. ATRASOS EM PROJETOS DE TI CAUSADOS POR FALHAS NA GESTÃO DOS STAKEHOLDERS RESUMOA Tecnologia da Informação (TI) tem passado por mudanças profundas e rápidas nas últimas décadas. Nesse contexto, as organizações devem estar preparadas para implementar, sob a forma de projetos, essas tecnologias da maneira mais rápida e efetiva possível, apresentando resultados antes de seus concorrentes. Portanto, pode-se notar que a entrega de um projeto no prazo cada vez mais curto é essencial. Because of to the interaction with stakeholders (through communication)is considered the main shortcoming of project managers in Brazil (PMI Chapters, 2011), it was chosen to understand the delay phenomenon in relation to the effectiveness of the stakeholders management of the IT projects.The exploration of these delays or other failures in IT projects through the stakeholders' theory is still an approach little used by the academic and professional environment.The importance of this approach is real, since failures in the stakeholders' management, such as for example, poor communication of these stakeholders (Molena, 2011), results in the problem of higher frequency in projects: failure to meet deadlines.In this context, one can define the following research problem: how failures in the stakeholders management of IT projects can negatively impactdirectly or indirectly -the ultimate deadlines for the project delivery?Through readings and exploratory discussions on the topic at issue and the through researcher's own practical observation, as a project manager, it could be defined -tentatively -some assumptions for the research. Such assumptions have served as guidelines for the structuring of the theoretical (Laurindo, 2008;Keen, 1993;Luftman, Oldach & Lewis, 1993). This definition, broader, already takes into account the administrative and human a...