Introduction
This thesis has grown and evolved from a single question: ”Why do IT projects fail”?
As part of the Maersk Line IT Business Intelligence Program, I have experienced first-hand that even with management support, sizeable investments and highly competent employees, delivering large scale IT projects is a challenge.
VP of Hitachi Consulting, Damian Smith, notes that when reviewing the last two decades of research on the topic, it seems that IT project failure is the norm rather than the exception. Most studies of IT project failure conclude that 65-80% of projects fail. Failure defined as projects that exceed their budgets, fail to meet deadlines or require material rework after launch. (Smith, 2008).
The most recent Chaos Manifesto published by the Standish Group supports the conclusion drawn by Smith.
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The Maersk Line BI Program (hereafter MLBI) has, as illustrated in section xx, become part of this unfortunate tendency within the industry.
The question posed in the beginning of the paper is placed within a context and plausible explanations are gathered from key actors across the program. Further, the practices of MLBI are compared to predominant literature and industry practice in the field.
Defining an IT project
The first challenge faced when attempting to investigate above question is defining what an IT project actually is. As John Smyrk notes, the term “IT project” is a firmly established concept in business language, but its meaning varies greatly. Smyrk infers three separate meanings of the term IT project. (Smyrk, 2007)
1. A project with at least one information system or technology amongst its outputs
2. A project undertaken within an IT functional unit.
3. Any project in whic...
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... but in order to not complicate matters the team representing the business customers will be referred to as the BICC.
The team on the IT side is currently known as the Business Intelligence and Master Data Management team (BIMDM).
The key motivation behind the business case for the BI program was a wish to ensure and improve access to data, enable manipulation and analysis across Mearsk Line. Furthermore, the BI program was intended to create “one single source of truth”. This wish was a clear response to the complex and cumbersome IT landscape that Maersk Line had built over the years. Managers experienced spending significant amounts of time arguing over supposed facts because different sources provided different versions of the truth.
Below is the vision for the BI program as presented in the business case.
INSERT VISION
History of bi in ML
Insert timeline
Information is a key component, which is virtual source in all aspects of business. Information helps create a well balance between analytics, business information, customers, vendors, and sales. Without proper use of information, businesses may struggle to understand components of their business, such as monitoring information, validated decision making, performance measuring, and the ability to identify new business opportunities. In this text, there will dialogue on how a Laboratory Corporation of America, also known as LabCorp, uses each one of these functions, to ensure better business practices, and proper regulatory control of the business components, that make this business strive.
As the world is constantly changing in terms of program needs and the requirements to achieve them, there is a demand for innovative and tactical ways to increase success in achieving project objectives. The ever-changing technological climate, market dynamics, relatively short-lived solutions and the arduous integration of business and I.T., have proved stumbling blocks in managing complex programs and ultimately attaining desired results on time and on budget.
2. Do not let any one individual in your IT group become the sole point of failure. Correct assessment; ironically it was a knowledge management system that led to the crash of the network. Succession planning is key ingredient to success for businesses. 3.
A successful implementation of BIM requires defining a BIM team in every phase of the project with assigned responsibilities to every member of the team. The teams involved in the BIM project also evolve with the project. Implementation of BIM improves profitability, quality of work produced, efficiency, competitiveness and the ability to
A project is defined as a "temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product or service" (PMI, 2000). A project exists only after a decision has been made to address a specific business need, either internal or...
Most projects fail due to inattentive management, poor communication and also shifting requirements. Information Technology projects are mostly affected by such factors and it will ensure the projects failure. Minnesota’s Department of Human Services closed out its project due to organizational issues named above. The project is called HealthMatch. The organization wasted millions of dollars in the project.
Sharma, D., Stone, M., & Ekinci, Y. (2009). IT governance and project management: A qualitative study. Journal of Database Marketing & Customer Strategy Management, 16(1), 29-50.
A project is a temporary endeavour undertaken to create a unique product or service. They are goal oriented, have a definite start and finish time, must be done within cost, schedule and quality parameters. Projects involve the coordinated undertaking of interrelated activities (Project Management: Achieving Competitive Advantage). According to Tom Peters, “Projects, rather than repetitive tasks, are now the basis for most value-added in business”. Based on this, it is clear that projects are of utmost importance to businesses in both the service and the manufacturing industries.
In conclusion, many people hold flawed ideation about BIM system. The respondents’ knowledge on BIM system is scanty and thus the kind of response generated by the interview. This shows that more has to be done to enlighten members of the public on BIM system and its inherent benefit.
BI is known to have both business and technical benefits. Let’s explore these benefits by taking into account the opinions of experts in this field.
Even with new technologies on the rise and countless new projects being created for those technologies, their success is still at a very low percent. According to Standish Groups student to the CHAOS research, Information Technology projects are only 28 percent successful, which is lower than the previous 34 percent that they estimated previously. Also, 18 percent of IT projects were canceled before reaching the development cycle, and 51 percent had to be shutdown because the exceeded the required budget. In addition, the Standish Groups estimated that around 80,000 projects were canceled in 1995. With those estimates they came up with and identified ten main reasons for these cancelations. CHAOS University then did another study to further implement Standish Groups claims which aided the Information technology success potential scoring sheet.
However, project management failures are very common. It can be caused by one factor or even a cumulative set of factors.
First of all, business intelligence analysis requires the capturing of information and storing in a single location for effective data analysis. Currently, data analysis is supported by transactional systems, business specific data marts, and other ad-hoc processes. Information is distributed making it difficult and time-consuming to access. Business teams have adapted to this environment by creating user maintained databases and manual “work-arounds” to support new types of reporting and analysis. This has resulted in inconsistent data, redundant data storage, significant resource use for maintenance, and inefficient response to changing business needs.
Information systems (IS) projects are vulnerable to resource cutbacks and the increasing complexity of systems and advances in information technology make finding the right personnel difficult and the associated development costs high. Good project management is essential for success. Some alignment methodologies include IBM's business systems planning (BSP), Robert Holland's strategic systems planning, James Martin's (1989) information engineering and method/1 from Anderson Consulting.
# The end-users have to be involved throughout the lifecycle of the process. This constant involvement though productive, for the iterative characteristics of this system process, means that staff time is consumed and project delays increased.