Individual Players in a Team Sport: Stakeholder Change in Commitment in ISD Projects

Information System Development (ISD) projects fail at an alarming rate; many of these failures result from managerial rather than technical difficulties. One of the principal management issues that affect ISD success is stakeholder commitment to the ISD process. To date, the majority of the ISD literature has not examined changes in commitment over time and how these changes may affect the success of an ISD project. In this paper, we examine the rate of change of commitment over time and offer five propositions: 1) Each individual will experience a different rate of change in commitment across the project life cycle, 2) the change in commitment is influenced by key stakeholders involved in the project, 3) the amount of commitment felt by each stakeholder must be above a critical threshold through certain key stages of the project in order to ensure ISD success, 4) the rate of change may differ for different stages in the life cycle, and 5) any sudden change in a key stakeholder’s commitment (positive or negative) at any stage has a negative effect on ISD success. These propositions are examined using a case study of an ISD project. The paper builds on the existing body of knowledge on ISD commitment and contributes to an understanding of how ISD efforts can be better monitored and controlled to optimize stakeholder commitment.