Chapter 14, Problem 4RQ

Explanation of Solution

Principal Risk Factors in Information Systems projects:

The risks that can create important issues in information system projects are the below three factors:

• Project Size
  • When there is an increase in the total size of the project, the risk also increases proportionally.
  • There is a big risk when larger projects are involved.
  • Project size includes the amount of dollars spent, the number of staff used for project execution and the number of units.
  • All these have some impact on the organisation.
  • There are few techniques to provide estimation and budgeting to prepare for a large-scale information system...

Explanation of Solution

Necessity to address implementation and change management:

The implementation and change management need to be addressed by the builders of the information system due to the following reasons:

• A combination of technical and social essentials forms an information system, that is, it becomes a sociotechnical entity.
• The change management involves people of the organisation, job roles, management, hardware, software, and overall business operations...

Explanation of Solution

Necessity of End-users’ and management’s support:

• A communication gap between the management’s goals, end-user requirements and the information system builders can lead to the failure of the system.
• The end users coming from different functions, preferences, operations, and so on have various requirements of the usage for the system implemented. It is important that the builders understand and address their requirements...

Explanation of Solution

Causes of high failure rate during implementation:

The projects involving enterprise applications, mergers and acquisitions, business process reengineering is hindered by high failure rates due to the following scenarios:

• Incomplete transition from the legacy or old system to the new information system architecture.
• Poor working methodology of the project and ineffective change management practices also impacts the outcome of the project.
• Integrating multiple number of domains and their respective functions can also be a challenge...

Explanation of Solution

Strategies for project risk control:

To reduce the probability of risk of failure, the following strategies can be employed:

• Employing technical skilled staff who are efficient and management oriented can provide good results.
• If unable to track internally qualified people, the process of outsourcing and hiring specialised companies can be taken into consideration.
• Utilising planning and monitoring tools to perform a work breakdown structure of all tasks will help to control the project duration and budgeting...

Explanation of Solution

Addressing of Organisational considerations:

The project planning and implementation team needs to investigate the following considerations of the organisational framework:

• There needs to be efficient involvement of organisational users during the development phase of the system.
• Management should be convinced on the ability of the system to create business value.
• There are high complications and risk involved...

Explanation of Solution

Benefits of Project management software tools:

Tools that are utilised to track and control the progress of the project are helpful in the following ways:

• Clear definition of the list of tasks involved and the important milestones
• Ability to assign and micro plan each activity with the addition of start date, end date, resources.
• Linking each activity input and output with other relevant activities, thereby identifying the critical path and bottleneck issues. Gantt chart, Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) are examples of the same...