2. State of the art and Related Work
In this section, will be described some previous works concerning the contributions through state of art of project management and related work specifically in the area of information technology. To be accomplished, it took a deep study and research in the IT projects area. The theoretical framework is based on national and international articles, journals, books and several works done in the area of project management.
2.1. Determinants of success and failure in projects
As stated by (IPMA, 2006) in the IPMA Competence Baseline (ICB) a project is “a time and cost constrained operation to realize a set of defined deliverables (with the scope to fulfill the project’s objectives) up to quality standards and requirements”. And as reported by (Gustavsson & Zika-Victorsson, 2008) “the majority of real projects are of a completely different character and organizations rarely run only one project at the time. Organizations must have strategies, set for the projects which target satisfying stakeholders’ expectations. Management’s role is mediate situations of conflict between all the stakeholders.
The project manager is “is not responsible for achieving the business benefits of the project, which accrue to and are largely realized by the organization once the project is delivered” (IPMA, 2006). Effective management requires the manager to have certain characteristics such as: Knowledge of project management (good performance in terms of what he/she is able to perform while applying their knowledge); Attitude (sense of leadership and guidance); Ability to achieve objectives and balance restrictions. To manage a project, certain requirements need to be met that will result in effective implementation of the set of factors, methods, tools and techniques that the manager has at hand. Therefore, in addition to implement the best practices in project management by using tools and methods that are effective in helping to project management, it is also necessary that there be a concern with the technologies to be employed, because the company that best combines the use of best technologies will certainly develop better.
The success of project management has often been associated with the final result of the project. The management of a project and its success are not directly related (Munns & Bjeirmi, 1996). Thus, a project can be successful even when managed badly and can fail even though it was well managed. Nevertheless, for some researchers, management is the key to a successful project. According to (Haughey, 2010) it is necessary to evaluate: behavior and technical skills, potential for leadership, personal strengths and weaknesses and experience, factors that allow there to be a greater chance of better management.
Poor communication among stakeholders, managers and the project team causes a project serious problem since the team comprises various professionals who interact for the benefit of all. Often, the language used by the people who make up the IT field is so technical that the customer, for example, has difficulty in understanding the information that the expert wants to convey to the consumer. The communication process widely used shows that a failure at any point in the process causes a dysfunction which interrupts the way that the message is completed. (Chiavenato, 2005) said that “communication is the process of transmitting information from one person to another person then shared by both”.
The traditional view of how the success of a project is measured uses three criteria: time, budget and requirements (Bakker, Boonstra & Wortmann, 2009). This structure, though criticized, is routinely used to determine the success factors in information technology projects, as can be seen in Figure 1:
Figure 1. Traditional view of success and failure in projects.
However, failures in information technology projects are constantly the subject of research, but the results are always the same, which prompts questioning the depth of such analysis and the factors that are being evaluated to be called into question. Few studies have evolved to find new insights about the factors that lead to the success or failure of information technology projects, and there therefore remains the need to fill this gap.
With regard to success factors, (Cooke-Davies, 2002) lists twelve success factors of success that are implemented by many national and multinational organizations. There are: Adequacy of company-wide education, Maturity of an organization’s processes, Adequacy with which a visible risk register is maintained, Adequacy in maintaining an up-to-date risk management plan, Adequacy of documentation of organizational responsibilities for the project, Keeping the project as far as possible below a duration of 3 years, Allowing changes to the scope, Maintaining the integrity of the performance measurement baseline, there being an effective benefits delivery and management process, Portfolio and programme management practices, A suite of projects, a program and portfolio metrics and An effective means of “learning from experience” on projects. However, as the (Cooke-Davies, 2002) reports in his article, the human factor is omitted as a determinant of the extent of project success. This omission is justified by two reasons: the research was focused on what people do and not the quality of their interactions and
decision-making and secondly, because there was no separation of human factors and process factors, the human factor is therefore implicit. And as reported by (Nahod, Vukomanovic & Radujkovic, 2013) Cooke-Davies and others researchers "investigated the factors of project success, success in project management and factors for continual success of project realization, citing the omission of the human factor as the only possible omission in their research".
According to (Repiso, Setchi & Salmeron 2007) to succeed in information technology project management, certain peculiarities in existing IT projects need to be observed that make them different from other types of project and increases the chance of failure. Over the years it has been recognized that project management is an effective tool to deal with complex tasks such as those involving information technology projects, as these have evolved at a rapid pace in recent years.
Organizational change is necessary when the organization needs a new direction. According to (Jung et al., 2008) elements that make up the culture can have a significant effect on multinational companies when a new management practice is implemented in a particular location. Management can influence many elements of corporate culture; indeed all members of the organization exert some influence on the corporate culture (Mwaura, Sutton & Roberts, 1998).
Globalization, as a phenomenon generated by integrating social, cultural, political and economic issues, is present through the speed with which information is provided due to the emergence of new forms of communication that allows anyone to have contact with people of different races, nationalities and ethnicities. Projects and organizations are based and composed of people who need to communicate and understand each other. Dealing with differences enables a professional to become more complete and the market increasingly demands business to take place between countries. A multicultural team within an organization enables there to be interaction, knowledge and understanding of the various behaviors and cultures of different groups and nationalities. People must respect and know each other well if good commercial agreements are to be made.
Culture is identified as one of the areas wherein the main reasons for failure in projects is to be found, but there are those who discourage the relationship of the cultural dimension with success and failure in projects (Muriithi & Crawford, 2003). (Fishman & Kavanaugh, 1989) suggest that the culture of an organization and how people react to change and innovation is based substantially on the behavior of the leader. Therefore, a relationship is perceived between culture, manager and his management and the factors that lead to failure or success in projects. Studying this relationship can provide more evidence of causes of faults in the project; however it is important to have data to prove this assumption.