An Alternative Method for Determining Critical Success Factors of Information System Project

Abstract

Historically, information system (IS) IntroductionProject performance studies in IS environment have been the interest of both researchers and practitioners for many years [1], but few of them focused on the methodological aspects in particularly the CSFs determination method. This method described how to identify critical areas that affect significantly performances of the project [2]. Although, this method as an IS methodology has introduced by John Rockart [3] using top-down approach in the late 1970s, but numerous researchers [4]- [12] have been using the bottom-up in their studies. Boynton and Zmud [2] described that the top down approach lends a sense of consistency and completeness. On the other side, they have also indicated that this nonautomated methodology is difficult to use and needs direction from a skilled analyst. It is may be one of the reasons why numerous researchers [4]-[12] utilized the bottom up in their studies because its easiness in the utilization, even by non-professional audiences [13]. Nevertheless, researchers [14] who used this method in their empirical studies concluded that they did not successful to prove the critical connection between most of the used CSFs and the project outcome. However, each of these methods has strengths and weaknesses, but the challenges here are how the IS project managers can determine the right CSFs that affect significantly in their projects using the appropriate method.In addition, researchers and practitioners will get an alternative choice to determine CSFs of their projects if both methods are combined in term of sharing the strengths and weaknesses. This combination is aimed to give a new perspective on understanding the IS project environment related to the organizational, managerial, and environmental issues. This paper presents combination of two methods abovementioned using the compatibility analysis. As described by Belout and Gauvreau [15] that most of models are developed using the previous theories rather than on empirical proofs. Based on this description, authors tried to make a logical sense to combine the top down [2] and the bottom up [4]- [12] methods. The aim is to provide an alternative method in order to deal a new method in the CSFs determination process. The following sections describe literature review, research method, the proposed method, its implementation in a case study, and lastly, this article is concluded with suggestion for the further studies.

A Coherent Framework for Understanding the Success of an Information System Project

“…As it was initiated by the Standish Group's report in the mid of 1990s, and the similar announcements were presented by numerous survey studies [5][6][7]. In respect of this issue, Subiyakto and Ahlan [8][9] identified several gaps of this field, among others, there are the ambiguity of the project success definition [10][11][12], the use of the partial perspective in its success measurement [12][13][14][15], and the tendency of the critical success factor (CSF) determination methods [7,9]. Accordingly, they proposed a coherent-conceptual framework based on their scanning the depth and breadth of the body of knowledge in the research field [8].…”

“…The use of this multi-perspective may helpful to more understand the success of an IS project, rather than the use of the single perspective. As it was suggested by scholars [8,9], [13][14][15][16], [45], emphasized that the use of the multi-dimension may develop the comprehensive view of the success. With regard to the above issue, Subiyakto and Ahlan [16] proposed an IS project success model based on their previous conceptual framework.…”