I.T. Project Success: Practical Frameworks Based on Key Project Control Variables

Abstract

The objectives of this study were to research into the interdependencies IT project control variables, and also come out with frameworks to help IT project managers understand how to effectively control these variables to ensure the success of IT projects. The study employed six control variables: Cost, Time (Schedule), Scope, Quality, Risk, and Benefits. A qualitative approach was adopted, where selected IT program and project managers of the Telecom industry in Ghana were interviewed individually and in a group based on a set of questions. The findings, espoused in the frameworks, reiterated the theory of the dependence of one control variable on the other, and the fact that varying one affects the others positively or negatively in relation to IT project success, as is the case for the iron triangle. Again, key activities of the control variables necessary to ensure IT project success were discovered.

IT Project Showstopper Framework: The View of Practitioners

“…These are excellent skills of project managers/team members, positive top management involvement, proper methodology/processes and governance structures in place, and good communication [2]. In other research, the author in collaboration with others, established the need for key project control variables to be managed and balanced well to ensure project success [3]. Again, in their paper "IT project failures in organizations in Ghana", they came out with seven common causes of failure of IT projects namely: lack of project management departments, no quality checks for IT projects, IT projects not completed according to schedule, no specific IT project management methodology followed, revision of scope very often for a particular project, IT projects not meeting users' needs, and wrong estimates [4].…”