Stakeholders’ different perspectives of critical success and risk factors in a case of large-scale system implementation across Africa

Abstract

Background: Most large information technology (IT) projects fail, costing businesses billions of rand while delivering limited benefits. This has stimulated considerable, yet inconclusive, research into the reasons for project success and failure. Objectives:The study explores a massive IT system implementation project, throughout Africa, that cost the organisation almost four times its annual profits and taken more than 10 years. The majority of South African and other African companies in the financial services sector still run on old legacy IT systems and will have to undergo similar exercises. The conceptual model of critical success factors presented here could be used as a high-level blueprint for these future large information system implementations. Method:The research questions required in-depth exploration of circumstances and incidents during the project life cycle and the case study method was the most appropriate design. Thirteen stakeholders were interviewed in a semi-structured interview format.Results: This exploratory case study delivers a comprehensive conceptual model that covers the high-level phases of successful large IT project delivery. It shows that project success only occurs when all critical tasks across the effectiveness and efficiency dimensions of a project are planned, performed and measured accurately. Conclusion:The differences in perspectives between stakeholder groups in the project ecosystem are highlighted, as well as their consequences. The study also contributes to the existing literature by providing a comprehensive formula for the accurate identification of overall project risk.

Revealing contribution mechanisms of project managers' technical competencies toward success in oil and gas projects

“…Progressively, different measures were used such as project efficiency and effectiveness. Project efficiency corresponds to the triple constraint measures, whereas project effectiveness concerns realizing the long-term benefits of a given project (Serrador and Turner, 2015; Scheepers and Whelpton, 2018). More recently, Moradi et al.…”

Characteristics of Effective IT Project Risk Management in Romanian IT Companies

“…Recent studies have shown the link between risk management and IT project success (Scheepers and Whelpton, 2018;Javani and Rwelamila, 2016;Didraga, 2013;de Bakker, 2010de Bakker, , 2011Pimchangthong and Boonjing, 2017).…”

“…The researchers (Spacey, 2016;Zwikael and Ahn, 2011) defined Risk Management Effectiveness as"the percentage of loss events that were managed as risks before they occurred". On the other hand, the literature review (Górecki, 2018;Scheepers and Whelpton, 2018;Javani and Rwelamila, 2016;Rekha, 2015;Rabechini Junior and Carvalho, 2013) highlights that risk management effectiveness can be correlated with the performance of IT projects and can help to control and minimize the impact of unfortunate situations or events. In this case, it is very important to identify the characteristics of effective IT Projects risk management in Romanian IT companies.…”