The Proactive Technology Project Recovery Function: A Methodological Analysis
type: CreativeWork
description: Information Systems (IS) failure is widely recognized as a severe and ongoing problem within the IS community. As a significant component of IS failure, troubled IS project delivery is a particularly prevalent occurrence, as exemplified by only 34% of IT projects undertaken by Fortune 500 companies being completed successfully. Consequently, organizations continue to seek innovative approaches to technology project management that effectively mitigates the risk of project failure. This dissertation examines a novel approach to such a scenario by investigating the concept of a project function tasked with proactively managing failing projects to closure. By examining this role in detail, this dissertation seeks to acquire managerial insights into the different components that distinguish this troubled project recovery approach from a typical project management response. However, to achieve these aims, there is a need to identify those methodologies most capable of providing insight into this subject. Therefore, this dissertation comprises three essays that, considered together, provide the IS discipline with a framework with which to explore the project recovery function in depth. The first essay provides a comprehensive analysis of the Delphi method, which is a structured approach for seeking the opinion of a group of experts. Insofar as explorative interviews have been undertaken with members of a project recovery function in a global technology organization, utilizing the Delphi method supports this dissertation’s aim by providing a framework for the IS discipline to leverage experts’ knowledge on how best to exploit such a project recovery structure. However, there is a need not only to acquire expert knowledge, but also to review and synthesize the diverse literature on project recovery. In as much as the relevant empirical studies are predominantly qualitative in nature and reside across many disciplines, the second essay will focus on the nature and use of the…
abstract: Information Systems (IS) failure is widely recognized as a severe and ongoing problem within the IS community. As a significant component of IS failure, troubled IS project delivery is a particularly prevalent occurrence, as exemplified by only 34% of IT projects undertaken by Fortune 500 companies being completed successfully. Consequently, organizations continue to seek innovative approaches to technology project management that effectively mitigates the risk of project failure. This dissertation examines a novel approach to such a scenario by investigating the concept of a project function tasked with proactively managing failing projects to closure. By examining this role in detail, this dissertation seeks to acquire managerial insights into the different components that distinguish this troubled project recovery approach from a typical project management response. However, to achieve these aims, there is a need to identify those methodologies most capable of providing insight into this subject. Therefore, this dissertation comprises three essays that, considered together, provide the IS discipline with a framework with which to explore the project recovery function in depth. The first essay provides a comprehensive analysis of the Delphi method, which is a structured approach for seeking the opinion of a group of experts. Insofar as explorative interviews have been undertaken with members of a project recovery function in a global technology organization, utilizing the Delphi method supports this dissertation’s aim by providing a framework for the IS discipline to leverage experts’ knowledge on how best to exploit such a project recovery structure. However, there is a need not only to acquire expert knowledge, but also to review and synthesize the diverse literature on project recovery. In as much as the relevant empirical studies are predominantly qualitative in nature and reside across many disciplines, the second essay will focus on the nature and use of the…
author: Skinner, Richard James
language: eng
keywords: Delphi, Proactive, Project recovery, Project failure, Qualitative synthesis, Meta synthesis
date published: 2018-05
date modified: 2026-07-24T02:31:42Z
provider: University of Houston
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Houston

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/10657/3429