Objective: This assignment's objective is to describe an Information System (IS) project situation of the past or present that you are familiar with and includes a particular strategic IS project management challenge. The project situation and the challenge are to be documented in form of a case study.
Purpose: The purpose of the case documentation is to explore a real strategic IS project situation in-depth and identify and document all the situational factors influencing a corresponding strategic IS project management challenge. The case documentation also forms the foundation for a subsequent case analysis (assignment 4) where the goal is to develop concrete recommendations for the identified management challenge, based on suitable content from the course. Further, all publishable (= non-confidential) case documentations go on a 'case marketplace' for assignment 4, meaning that you will not be limited to analyze the case you documented in this assignment and also that other students may select the case documentation you produce in this assignment for their assignment 4 (as long as it is not confidential).
Research process -
Finding a project: The first step is to identify a suitable IS project situation for this assignment. Ideally, this would be a situation where one or more course topics are clearly applicable and where you have had some involvement in, past or present, typically through your workplace. However, it is possible that your knowledge about the situation may be limited and/or the situation may be too complex for the purposes of this assignment. If it is, consider selecting a specific focus or feel free to simplify (but not over-simplify) the situation. Likewise, the strategic IS project management challenge the case revolves around may not have been acted upon (or even perceived) in the past. Therefore, you may need to use a certain amount of 'artistic licence' to ensure that the case's IS project situation has the characteristics that are required for the assessment.
Gathering data: The second step involves data gathering in the organization, in order to fully explore the project situation. This may involve analyzing available documentation and interviewing one or more stakeholders of chosen project situation. Before you start gathering data and contacting potential interviewees, you have to decide whether the case needs to be (or should be) confidential. To inform the interviewees, there is a participant information sheet available that they can keep (and that differs between the two case types). The interviewees also have to sign a consent form before the interview can take place (again, the consent form differs between the case types). Please retain the signed consent forms and ensure confidentiality of the gathered data by following the data collection guidelines outlined in the information sheets.
Writing the case documentation: The third and final step is writing the actual case study documentation. All persons and organization names are to be anonymized / pseudonymized. Write in the third person, from the point of view of the key manager / executive involved into a challenge or decision (this person can be fictitious and does not need to be you or the actual project manager). E.g., "Jane was worried. She had a presentation to the senior executive team tomorrow, and she needed to tell them that the project had some serious issues..." Again, the challenge or decision situation may not have been acted upon or even perceived in the actual situation of the past. Otherwise, please do not document the actual decision-making process and outcome - recommending a decision or action will be the objective for assignment 4.
You can use the Schultze (2014) paper from the course readings (session 4) as an exemplar for further inspiration regarding the structure and the writing style (but feel free to deviate from it, if it helps your 'storytelling'). Please also take a look at the marking criteria below, as they cover all required elements for the case documentation as well as the supplementary factors.
This assignment's main challenge may be distilling the key aspects of a project situation into a concise case study that is neither overly generalized and too high-level, nor too bogged down in detail. You need to exercise considerable judgment in this respect. Also, consider omitting details about other ongoing issues in the organization that came up during the data gathering process, but are unrelated to the project situation and management challenge that you focus on.
Feel free to use (anonymized!) real project deliverables as foundations for illustrative case material, to be provided as part of the main document (e.g., as figures or tables) or as appendices. Ensure that this material is actually readable in the submitted document.
The assignment should contain:
Abstract and introduction
- The abstract summarizes the case well
- The introduction provides a clear motivation and orientation for the reader
IS project situation
- The chosen IS project situation is well-suited for the course context
- The project scope is not too large or too small
- The case retains a good focus on the chosen challenge and the key issues at hand
Case description: the environment
The case documentation provides a thorough, yet succinct description of the relevant
- wider context / industry
- organization(s) / department(s) / unit(s)
- relevant protagonist(s) and stakeholder
Case description: the strategic IS project management challenge
The case documentation provides a rich, yet succinct description of:
- a strategic IS project management challenge
- the corresponding constraints and requirements
- relevant factors of the surrounding situation
Document structure
- The case description is well structured
- The chosen headings capture the sections' contents well
- There is a natural flow from one section to the next
Writing and presentation
- The writing style is appropriate, clear and succinct throughout the document
- Tables, figures and diagrams complement the written text well and are anchored in the text
- The overall document layout and presentation is appealing
Case -
Oracle to Salesforce:
This is a project situation where one of my previous organization started with one of the internal project of changing the sales interface from oracle to salesforce. The Director of the organization along with the VP for operations were heading this internal project and the way that the project management went haywire as the project which was supposed to be over within two years is probably still dangling it's way due to some unseen changes, risks and ego clashes at management level to complete the project actually made the organization loose heaps of money and time in the project.
This project was started way back in 2011-12 when our organization planned to go ahead with some robust interface for the sales people as the previous system that they were using was becoming too laggy and they were being left out with respect to the functionality factor. Also an easy interface which can be run on mobiles with an easy download from the app store and plenty of features like the dashboard etc. Thus came the solution of implementing salesforce. Salesforce as an technology did come with the required features and was one of the best solutions that the market had to offer with a cloud based platform, easily aaccessible from any device. The way that the project risks were not taken into consideration also the frequent changes of team members that were appointed within a different geo-location added up to many hassles that the project had to go through.
Also some of the project factors that can be elaborated in the case documentation are:
- Project management methodologies
- Project Risk management
- Project Benefits management
- Programme and portfolio management
- Project Governance
- Strategic Perspective on information systems and project management