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Why Software Projects Escalate: The Importance of Project Management Constructs

Why Software Projects Escalate: The Importance of Project Management Constructs. by M. Keil, A. Rai, J.E. Cheney Mann, G.P. Zhang (IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, 2003). The Main Issues Studied. Can Project Management Constructs be used to distinguish those projects that are

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Why Software Projects Escalate: The Importance of Project Management Constructs

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  1. Why Software Projects Escalate:The Importance of Project Management Constructs by M. Keil, A. Rai, J.E. Cheney Mann, G.P. Zhang (IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, 2003)

  2. The Main Issues Studied • Can Project Management Constructs be used to distinguish those projects that are • escalatedand • those that are not escalated • Which Project Management Constructs have the most “predictive” power in distinguishing escalated versus non-escalated projects

  3. Project Management Constructs • Project Planning • Project Specification • Project Estimation • Project Monitoring • Project Control

  4. Escalation and non-Escalation • Escalation • Occurs when troubled projects are continued instead of being redirected or abandoned • Also occurs when lower management refuses to acknowledge problem (Tsui’s addition) • Non-Escalation • May not mean there is no problem; it may be we haven’t detected any problem, yet (Tsui’s addition)

  5. Research Methodology • Used surveys on escalated and non-escalated projects: • 579 samples from 2231 pool of IS auditors/audit managers • Familiar with projects from early stages • Survey questions: • Covered the 5 areas of project management constructs • Each area had multiple sub-items • Used various regression analysis to correlate: • a) project management constructs with • b) escalation variable • Also, studied the predictive validity of the “model” of project management constructs on escalation

  6. Major Results • Project Management Constructs can be used to distinguish between escalation versus non-escalation • The project management constructs considered to have significant correlation to escalation are: • Specification • Estimation • Monitor and control • Monitor and Control was found to be the most important. • The model based on project management constructs had better correlation with escalation than any other model based on escalation theory Management-practitioners should focus their attention on the very basics - - - ----- project management constructs -------- first before worrying about other factors such as Social or Organizational Set-ups, Project Size, etc.)

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