IT projects : who are they really for?

• Main Author: Sigurður T. Valgeirsson 1969-
• Other Authors: Háskólinn í Reykjavík
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2015
• Subjects: Verkefnastjórnun; Upplýsingatækni; Tækni- og verkfræðideild; Meistaraprófsritgerðir; MPM; Project management; Information technology; School of Science and Engineering; Iceland
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1946/22690

We all know stories of IT projects that have gone wrong, such as stories of development failures and how those have had severe impacts on organizations. Additionally, stories on late delivery, exceeded budgets, reduced functionality, questionable quality and various side effects are common. But who are these IT projects really for? This paper evaluates a real case that addresses several failed software projects that were handled by the same company over a 10 years period, made for and paid for by the government offices of Iceland. All these projects where eventually scrapped for lack of quality and functionality, but at the same time over budget and over time. In this paper it the possible effects that an implementation and use of Prince2 methodology would have on these projects are analyzed. The results clearly indicate that there was an opportunity and room for improvements in managing, often complex IT projects, in these projects. These often are influenced more by wishful thinking than realism of professional project management methods. By Prince2 standards, IT projects are made for the people that are defined in the early stages of the project phase, before the project begins, not afterwards. That was probably the biggest mistake, not doing that in the projects analyzed in the paper, so the questions concerning the stakeholders of the projects was not answered in these, at least not early enough.