Agile Maturity

Author(s):  
Carl Marnewick ◽  
Josef Langerman

Information technology (IT) projects are not adding value to organizational strategies. This is due to the high failure rates of these projects. Agile is perceived as a possible solution to this dilemma and preliminary evidence indicates that this is actually the case. To enhance the success rates of IT projects, agile principles need to be adopted and this can only be done through a process of maturity. The purpose of this chapter is to highlight the importance of agile in IT project success and to show how agile maturity can be achieved through the application of maturity models. Agile maturity models themselves are not the answer as organizations themselves should be agile mature. This is achieved through a new way of thinking and working. The conclusion is that there should be a new way of managing IT projects in order to achieve value.

Author(s):  
Emad Abu-Shanab ◽  
Ashraf Al-Saggar

Information Technology (IT) projects have high failure and escalation rates because of the nature of domain and the rapid technology changes. It is important to understand the factors causing IT project success or failure. This chapter reviews the literature related to project failure and escalation and concludes with 17 important factors that cause IT projects to fail and 10 factors that contribute to the escalation of projects in time, cost, or scope. The concluded factors are utilized in an empirical study to explore the Jordanian environment and check the rank of these factors as perceived by Jordanian specialists. Conclusions and future work are stated at the end of this chapter.


2012 ◽  
pp. 1601-1624
Author(s):  
Robert J. Hammell ◽  
Julie Hoksbergen ◽  
James Wood ◽  
Mark Christensen

With the growing complexity of information technology (IT) projects, the management of these projects is proving to be a daunting task. The magnitude of this problem is underscored by the assertion that approximately 70% of IT projects fail to meet their objectives (Lewis, 2007). Computational intelligence (CI) is an area of research focused on developing intelligent systems to help with complex problems. Specifically, CI seeks to integrate techniques and methodologies to assist in problem domains in which information, data and perhaps even the problem itself are vague, approximate, and uncertain. It would seem that research aimed at leveraging the power of CI against IT project management problems is critical if IT project success rates are to be improved. This work examines the core CI technologies – fuzzy logic, neural networks, and genetic algorithms – and looks at current and potential future applications of these techniques to assist IT project managers.


Author(s):  
Robert J. Hammell ◽  
Julie Hoksbergen ◽  
James Wood ◽  
Mark Christensen

With the growing complexity of information technology (IT) projects, the management of these projects is proving to be a daunting task. The magnitude of this problem is underscored by the assertion that approximately 70% of IT projects fail to meet their objectives (Lewis, 2007). Computational intelligence (CI) is an area of research focused on developing intelligent systems to help with complex problems. Specifically, CI seeks to integrate techniques and methodologies to assist in problem domains in which information, data and perhaps even the problem itself are vague, approximate, and uncertain. It would seem that research aimed at leveraging the power of CI against IT project management problems is critical if IT project success rates are to be improved. This work examines the core CI technologies – fuzzy logic, neural networks, and genetic algorithms – and looks at current and potential future applications of these techniques to assist IT project managers.


Author(s):  
John Nicholas ◽  
Gezinus Hidding

Success in information technology (IT) projects remains elusive, even after decades of efforts to improve it.   Most of these efforts have focused on variations of the traditional project management paradigm as promulgated by PMBOK.  We suspected that a potential cause of high IT project failure is with the paradigm, which focuses on the project itself and on meeting time and cost targets.  A new paradigm called Value-Driven Change Leadership (VDCL) originated from discussions of a panel of project management experts.  This paper describes the principles of that paradigm.  It also reports the results from a survey of four project managers on the association between project success and management principles from VDCL and PMBOK.


Author(s):  
Alice S. Etim ◽  
Chandra Prakash Jaiswal ◽  
Marsheilla Subroto ◽  
Vivian E. Collins Ortega

The management of information technology (IT) projects has experienced a shift from predictive and traditional project management methodology to more adaptive practices like Agile. Agile method and its developmental stages are a response to current business-changing trends and computing needs of society. The process assists in accelerating product delivery with rapid feedback and cost-conscious, consecutive iteration, distinguishing it from other traditional practices like the waterfall method. This chapter contributes to the existing literature by discussing agile project management for IT projects, with a specific case of the Africa IT project – the Books for Africa Project (hereafter called, Book Project). The first part of the chapter is used to review the literature on Agile IT projects. The Book Project as a case is an IT project, and it is discussed in detail in the chapter. The chapter concludes with transferable lessons for projects in developing countries, specifically those located in Sub-Saharan Africa.


Author(s):  
Shahzada Benazeer ◽  
Jan Verelst ◽  
Philip Huysmans

Information systems and information technology (IS/IT) services are often outsourced to external partners for multiple reasons. The outsourcing literature is persistently reporting high failure rates in IS/IT project outsourcing. Literature suggests that the IS/IT project outsourcing is a complex maneuver, but unfortunately, none of the proposed remedies (mitigating actions) have considered addressing the complexity related issue in IS/IT project outsourcing. This paper explores the concept of modularity, as it has been applied in many other fields in order to manage complexity and enhance agility/flexibility. This paper presents a case study conducted at a Belgian organization involved in technology services and is part of a research project consisting of four cases. This study illustrates a systematic approach, how the concept of modularity can be applied in identifying ‘couplings' which may be responsible for increasing complexity to IS/IT project outsourcing. This study is a first attempt to gain insight into this phenomenon.


2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 80-91
Author(s):  
Scott Winnard

Information technology (IT) tends to be viewed as ancillary to core government functions. Consequently, IT is often outsourced to the private sector. Unfortunately, there is a long line of failed outsourced projects. This article uses two New Zealand case studies, the particularly public failure of the recent school payroll system and the successful introduction of electronic immigration processing, to examine how the design and governance of outsourced government IT projects could be improved. It concludes that an awareness of historic trends is important for project success, that governments need to be more active in combating market based transaction costs and that contract management becomes a core government competency when projects are outsourced. It also argues that better change management and cognisance of design-reality gaps would positively impact the outcomes of future projects.


Author(s):  
JAN TERJE KARLSEN ◽  
JEANETTE ANDERSEN ◽  
LIVE S. BIRKELY ◽  
ELISE ØDEGÅRD

This paper presents empirical research aimed at studying what characterizes successful information technology (IT) projects. There are often doubts about what characterizes project success and who actually defines it. In this paper, we have reviewed the literature and present significant contributions to the discussion of what characterizes successful IT projects. Furthermore, a survey was conducted in Norway to collect data on successful IT projects. Research results show that the five most important success criteria are: (1) the IT system works as expected and solves the problems, (2) satisfied users, (3) the IT system has high reliability, (4) the solution contributes to improved efficiency and competitive power, and (5) the IT system realizes strategic, tactical and operational objectives.


Author(s):  
Leonardo Lopes ◽  
Antonio Vico Mañas

The Information Technology (IT) has undergone profound and rapid changes in recent decades. In this context, organizations must be prepared to implement these technologies, on the form of projects, as quickly and effectively as possible, providing results before its competitors. Therefore, it can be noted that the delivery of a project on time, ever shorter, is essential. Considering these observations, the main purpose of this study is to explore how failures in IT project stakeholder management may impact, directly or indirectly, the deadlines of these projects. The empirical research, qualitative in nature, is of the exploratory type and counted with the participation of IT project managers and managers of IT project managers, who answered a semi structured interview and provided documents in support of the research. The transcripts of the interviews as well as the provided documents were used for the analysis of data content. As a final result of this study, the main failures in the stakeholder management that may compromise – mostly indirectly – the timely delivery of IT projects are identified and explored.


Author(s):  
Rudy M Harahap ◽  
Andri Setiawan ◽  
Adi Subakti Kurniawan ◽  
Merlin Mulia

The success rate of information technology (IT) projects is still low. Based on one survey done in 1990s, only about 10% of software development project could be finished according to its planned budget and schedule. Another study in 1995 found that only 16.2% IT project succeed, and at the same time more than 31% IT projects were cancelled before finished. It has been found a lot of IT projects had been implemented with swelling budget. Although it is still debatable, one of the reasons of IT project implementation failure is because risk management in some IT projects is not implemented by the IT providers. The objectives of this research are to get knowledge and assess risks in implementing IT projects. This research also gives recommendations in mitigating IT project risks. In two projects that were used as sample of this research, it has been found some risks that could be happened in IT projects. That risks were then assessed based on the probability and its impact, and finally produced the recommendation for risk mitigation. All risks are described in the Risk Priority, moreover risk probability and impact is described in the probability-impact matrix from all of 4 levels. This research could improve the awareness of IT providers in Indonesia about the important of implementing IT risk management so that more IT projects in Indonesia could be run successfully.Keywords: Risk assessment, information technology project, impact, frequency


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