The consideration of organizational issues during the systems development process: an empirical analysis

The lack of consideration of organizational issues in systems development can lead to project failure. A review of the literature and a pre-test survey suggested classifying organizational issues into five categories and examining how these are considered by IT managers. A postal survey with responsesfrom 64 senior IT specialists over a cross section of industry and commerce showed that there is a general awareness of theimportance of organizational issues but there was little consensus on how they should be addressed in the developmentprocess. These IT managers were consistent in spending most effort on the issues perceived as most important from the list of14 issue provided, but there was considerable variation in whichspecific issues they rated most important. In general thoseorganizational issues with a `technical’ aspect were given moreprominence than those which are less tangible, but which maybe more critical to a system’s success.