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 responses from 64 senior IT specialists over a cross section of industry and commerce showed that there is a general awareness of the importance of organizational issues but there was little consensus on how they should be addressed in the development process. These IT managers were consistent in spending most effort on the issues perceived as most important from the list of 14 issue provided, but there was considerable variation in which specific issues they rated most important. In general those organizational issues with a `technical’ aspect were given more prominence than those which are less tangible, but which may be more critical to a system’s success.