The Technology Organization Interaction

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

To investigate the reasons of IS project implementation difficulties at the CBAR and to find out more relevant strategies for the future IS project implementations.

The research intends to achieve the following objectives:

To do research on related literatures to identify the theoretical aspects of IS project implementation difficulties(theoretical knowledge)

To analyze the IS projects undertaken at CBAR since 2006. Challenges during the implementation, failures if there are any. To find out the reasons behind these challenges and failures(practical sides)

To identify if these reasons are general IS implementation difficulties or they are specific to CBAR?

To find out the solutions to these challenges.

Literature review

Introduction

Implementation of information systems in an organization can be a considerable challenge as in most organizations it takes significantly more time and money than expected with the additional complication that the implemented system might not work properly (Laudon, &Laudon, 2012). According to the Standish Group consultancy that monitors the success ration of information system projects, only 29% of information system projects were completed as planned in respect of time, budget and other specified functions (Levinson, 2006). There is a wide range of factors that can impact on the implementation of information systems in an organization which have been set out by Vaughan (2001)

The mutual effects of technology and organization

User participation and joining in IS implementation

Resistance – can be individual or organizational

Planning

Risks

Laudon and Laudon (2012:p572) also added ‘…an overall management factor of implementation process’ and ‘management support for implementation’, additionally Turban and Volonina (2010) emphasized the vendor’s role in implementation.

Technology-Organization interaction

Technology changes the ways in which employees interact with each other to perform daily tasks (Deetz, Simpson J., Tracy S., 2000). It can have an influence the relations between employees, organizational structure and even the power balance in organization. Therefore, organizational culture is one of the most significant factors to be taken into account when working on an information system project. In addition, institutional and cultural differences between users and IT experts can cause disagreements between those who create the system and those who actually will use it (Vaughan, 2001). These problems can thus result in a project failure.

User participation

User participation is another key element of system implementation. However, it is not easy to manage user involvement without encountering problem which might occur between the IS specialists and users. This tendency is referred to as the ‘user-designer communications gap.’ These gaps between users and IS specialists may involve very high failure risks. Different from the past, which IS development has been dominated professional users such as programmers and system analysts, Avison and Fitzgerald (2003) propose that it is desirable that all users are participated in the development process. In their research about the role of user participation in IS development He and King (2008) come to the conclusion that the user involvement is considerable advantageous in IS development. However, Lapiedra, Alegre, and Chiva (2006) in their similar study claim that the more user involvement might also lead to longer planning and development process.

The IS specialists and the users tend to have different backgrounds, interests, approaches and priorities. IS specialists look for optimized technical solutions with hardware-software efficiency for organizational effectiveness, while users seek for systems proper to solve business problems or facilitating organizational issues (Laudon, &Laudon, 2012). An information system should be developed according to users’ wishes and demands, as the system will be utilised by the users who should therefore be given some responsibilities and opportunities to provide input. When users are given the choices and the responsibilities in the implementation, they tend to be more involved and therefore they are more able to shape the system related to their business requirements and priorities.

Planning

Planning is also a critical part of implementation since planning, along with establishing what is to be done, eases also the method to ‘make-it-happen’ (Burke, 2007:p257). Without an appropriate plan, an information system implementation will encounter numerous challenges. Although it is not easy to plan all aspects of the process, foreseeing the potential problems and adopting strategies to counter these can increase the success rate. According to Vaughan (2001), a good project plan begins with a clearly identified and publicly stated vision. It should include a specification of member roles, organizational needs, a specification of the processes, units, functions that relate to the project and training needs. In brief, when there is more detailed planning, the success rate is enhanced.

Risks

There are always risks both high and low at all stages of system implementation. Risks are the main warnings of failure, brought about by project size, project structure and the level of technical knowledge and experience of the information systems experts and project team members (Laudon &Laudon, 2012).

Project size: As the project size increase so does the failure risk. Larger projects mean higher expenses, size of implantation members, implementation time, the number of organizational units related to implementation. The failure risk of a larger project is greater because of its complexity and difficulties in control.

Project structure: Well-structured projects are more low risk than badly-structured ones. Well-structured projects are likely to include clear requirements, easily defined processes and outputs,all stakeholder knowingis requiredso that they do not change their mind later. Ill-structured projects: in the contrary are ill-defined, with frequently changing requirements and users do not know what they want.

Technical experience: Technical knowledge and experts’ experience are alsokeyin respect of the decision to begin the implementation. This is because there have been a number of failures due toa lack of knowledge of information system experts who were unable to solve user requirements.

Vaughan (2001) identifies other significant risks such as unwilling users, high numbers and cultures participating in decision making, unrealistic budget and schedule together with weak risk management. Also, key employees resigning in the middle of implementation, which is seen more in small companies, can be considered as an implementation risk.

Management Support and Commitment

An information system project is much more effective and the work progresses well, when users feel supported, involved and that they have management interest at various levels. Backing from management also ensures sufficient funding and resources which are key to successful implementation (Laudon, C., &Laudon, P., 2012). Turban and Volonina (2010) add a second reason that users who align themselves with the behaviour of top management, for political reasons, will involve themselves more in the implementation. According to the research carried out by Corbett and Finney (2007) top management support and commitment is one of the two critical success factors of IS implementation.

Vendor Support

A vendor’s ability to support the system, when the system is outsourced, is very important. Therefore, vendor choice is crucial to the project. The vendor should have relevant experience and stable resources to support the entire project. Pollard (2003) emphasizes that the vendor-active user relation is a very useful method to facilitate the system implementation. Additionally, a company should be able to monitor the quality of service that the vendor provides (Avison, D., &Fitzgerald, G., 2003).

Strategies for Managers

Vaughan (2001) stated that the majority of problems and solutions are the outside of the boundaries of technology. The most difficult problems relating to an information system implementation are human-centric ones. Therefore, information system project managers and implementers should focus primarily on the human factors, looking to encourage users to be involved with the implementation process and keep them active at all stages. Plans for all stages must bewell-defined to best manage the situation. Attention must also be paid to risk management issues. For the technology aspects, relevant research and assessment should be done to ensure that both cost-effective and functional technology has been chosen to implement. Soh and Sia (2005) offer a ‘vanilla’ approach as a better way for reducing costs and risks in project implementation. The ‘Vanilla’ approach is to implement the package without modification since these obviously, carry risks.

Cobb’s paradox (1995) could be useful for managers to consider. Cobb’s paradox: ‘We know why projects fail; we know how to prevent their failure. So why do they still fail?’

The subjective answer could be that it is known that, user involvement is an important factor in implementation. However, what might not be known is each user’s unique behaviour as everyone has a unique perception, behaviour, and life experience (Gibson et al 2006). It is known that, there are certain types of organizations but what might not be known is each organization’s unique functions, rules or culture.

Conclusion

This research has shown that, as long as there are subjective factors in project implementation, there might not be an exact approach for solutions. However, since the core problems are human-centric problems the majority of them can be resolved through effective user communications. Therefore, with an effective plan and user motivation managers can overcome the most difficult implementation challenges.

Methodology

Taking into account that the research seeks an in-depth investigation of the reasons for the IS implementation difficulties and failures at the CBAR, the qualitative approach has been decided to use in order to obtain and analyse detailed information. To achieve this goal, firstly documents will be researched in depth then interviews will be conducted with the key employees who has participated in the IS implementations.

Practicalities

Since formal agreement for most of issues with the CBAR relating to the dissertation research has been planned to be done on researcher’s visit to Baku in May for personal reasons, and all interviews has been aimed to be taken via Skype, therefore this dissertation project is considered as cost natural. The only concern is about a time constraint as there are expected to be a lot of documents and interview transcripts to be researched and analyzed. Considering the amount of works to be done three month dissertation period should be spent more productive in order to achieve the intended result.

Ethical aspects

The factors that can affect the IS project implementation might have numerous dimensions such as individual, group, organizational, and external. Because this is very sensitive issue in many dimensions therefore, it is considered to be of high risk dissertation and very important to convince the interviewees and the representative who provides the documents that all processes are well-secured. Therefore, the interviews and other documents provided by the Bank will be stored in a secure place and protected against unauthorised access to provide high confidentiality and compliance with the University’s Ethical policy.