IS Project Management Contemporary Research Challenges

Although project management is often said to have its roots in other traditional fields, such as construction, Morris (2002) asserts that modern project management practices have their origins in the 1950s US aerospace agencies. Much has been written about Information System (IS) / Information Technology (IT) project initiatives in both the public and private sectors. In fact, many information systems frequently fall short of their requirements, and are, more often than not, costlier and arrive later than anticipated, if indeed they are completed at all. For instance, according to a report for the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (2001), failures of major IT investments and key systems development projects have raised concerns for the achievement of service improvement through information technology. Additionally, it has been argued that failures in IT projects are more common than failures in any other aspect of modern business (Nulden, 1996). The widely-cited Standish Group (1994) study, carried out in the US, classified IT projects as follows: