Model-supported alignment of information systems architecture
Business strategies for information technology management
Factors and measures of business process modelling: model building through a multiple case study
European Journal of Information Systems - Special section: PACIS 2004
Collaborative systems development in disaster relief: The impact of multi-level governance
Information Systems Frontiers
Factors that affect software systems development project outcomes: A survey of research
ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR)
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The information systems literature has long been concerned with the factors that influence success or failure in information systems development projects. Factors such as top management support, user involvement and the use of effective development methodologies have often been quoted as essential for success. This paper reports a case study into an information system project in a large public sector organization which, at least initially, had most of the traditional success factors operating in its favor. Nevertheless, the project was terminated early without delivering any software product.The reasons for the termination seemed purely political and the research reported in this paper sets out to analyze what happened to the project and why. Data for the study was obtained by a combination of project document analysis, participant interviews and widely distributed questionnaires. The research design was based, in part, on an original theoretical model which uses the concept of "information wards" to link the nature of a proposed information system, and the type of organization in which it is embedded, to the political implications of the development effort. This model is described in the paper. The model postulates that the scope of a proposed information system can precipitate politically motivated activity in certain kinds of organizations. The results derived from the case study are consistent with this postulation so, it is argued, the information ward model offers a new approach to explaining the failure of the case study project and, possibly, the failure of other information systems development projects.