IT Project Management from a Systems Thinking Perspective: A Position Paper

We proposes a Systems Thinking approach to the study of IT project management and show how this approach helps project managers in controlling their projects. To illustrate our proposal, we present an example model of the dynamics of IT outsourcing projects. The example model explains these dynamics in terms of feedback loops consisting of causal relations reported in the literature. The model provides insight in how coordination, trust, information exchange and possibilities for opportunistic behaviour influence each other and together influence delivery quality, which in turn influences trust. The integration of these insights provided by applying the Systems Thinking perspective helps project managers to reason about how their choices influence project outcome. The Systems Thinking perspective can serve as an additional tool in the academic study of IT project management. Applying the Systems Thinking perspective also calls for additional research in which this perspective is itself the object of study.