Reducing Information Systems Failure - Assignment Example

Information systems failure and how such failures can be reduced Introduction Information systems failure is a topic, which has been publicized in the recent past by both computing press and the general press. Concerns are rising among many organizations, which have lots of capital in software projects but proving to be of partial benefit to the firms. There is vast evidence that information systems failure has become a global problem. Due to the wide spread problems of information system failure, there has been debate among academicians in the fields of information systems, computer science and software engineering in the recent past. In spite of limited empirical data on this topic, theoretical work has been instrumental in understanding of information system failure among practitioners and academicians. This paper discusses information systems failure by outlining the different information systems failure using two case studies to analyse the cause of the failure. Finally, this paper recommends various ways that can be used by managers or information technology managers to reduce information systems failure. (Beynon-Davies, 1999) Information systems failure Dating back to 1970s, several frameworks have been proposed to aid in the process of understanding the concept of information systems failure. Hirschheim and Lyytinen recently proposed one of the most important approaches, which have been very instrumental in the understanding of informational systems failure; this is a concept of expectation failure. Sauer (1993) introduced another concept of termination failure (Beynon-Davies, 1999). A survey on information systems failure literature by Hirschheim and Lyytinen (1987) identified four main theoretical categories of information systems failure. The first category is correspondence failure. This category is the most publicized in the theoretical literature which reflects the perspectives of management of information systems failure. It is based on the need for correspondence between detailed specification of design objectives and the evaluation process for a successful system; thus, lack of such correspondence contributes to information systems failure. The second category is the process failure. This is attributed to by unsatisfactory development performance. This may be due to inability of an information system development process to produce a workable system or when the information system developed is unable to run within the budget. The third category is interaction failure. This involves usage of system failure. It is argued that a system that is heavily used is a successful system while the one that is rarely used or which is associated with major problems during its usage constitutes an informational system failure. The last category is expectation failure. Hirschheim and Lyytinen describe this as a superset type of failure among other types of failure. This is thought to encompass both pluralistic and politically informed view of information system failure than the other three categories. This is attributed to the fact that expectation failure characterizes interaction, process and correspondence failures as viewed by technical artefact on information systems failure. However, Hirschheim and Lyytinen (1987) defined expectation failure as an information system that is not able to meet the expectations of a specific group of stakeholders. Thus, information system failure is an indication of the difference that exists between a desired situation and existing situation. The expectation failure can also occur at both development and usage stage. If the development processes of future information system do not fit to the interests of the stakeholders then it is bound to lead to information systems failure. Development problems in this case may include technology, goals, organizational impact, and economy, perception of participation and control of development. On the other hand, usage problems include complexity of the system, technical solutions, conceptual, data problems and the reaction of people (Beynon-Davies, 1999) Sauer’s concept of termination failure is more conservative in defining information system failure. According to Sauer, an information system failure occurs when operation of a developed or developing system abruptly stops leaving supporters dissatisfied with the extent to which the information system has met their interests. This implies that a system failure has occurred and/ or when the interest in developing information system project stopped. According to Sauer (1993), development of information system is a process of innovation, which has three components. These include the project organization, the system supporters and the information system. In this model, the supporters depend on the information system, the information system depends on the project organization and the project organization depends on its supporters. According to Sauer, information system is open to flaws, which can be corrected unlike failures, which cannot. Flaws constitute stakeholders’ perceptions of being faced with undesired situations (problems) that need to be solved. These flaws include hardware performance, program bugs and organizational changes. Thus, their (stakeholders’) support should be available to deal with flaws in order to reduce the incapability of the information system in serving the supporters. Lack of such support may also bring about more flaws into the process of innovation. Increased flaws may result in decision to exclude support, thus termination of the project. (Beynon-Davies, 1999). Differences between information systems success and information system failure Definition of information system success and failure is fundamentally difficult to differentiate. Information system failure as mentioned above has several varying definitions. According to Sauer, information system failure occurs when the development and/ or system operations stops leaving its’ supporters dissatisfied with the extent to which their interests have been served by the system. On the other hand, Standish Group defines information system failure as a cancelled project or the inability of a project to meet its delivery, business and budget objectives. Given these varied description of failure, it was observed by Howcroft and Wilson that all projects could be seen as a failure at some point (Fowler & Horan, 2007). Information system success has also been described in several ways. For instance, Taylor defined it as a system that delivers all properties of quality specified in the agreement between the developer and the sponsor or one, which is delivered within the cost and time agreed upon with the sponsor. On the other hand, Standish Group defines information system success as one, which meets its delivery, business and budget objectives. (Jeremy et al 2007) The myriad definitions of information system success and failure make it difficult to differentiate what is success and what is failure (Fowler & Horan, 2007). This is because one system may be considered by one stakeholder to be a success while the other considers it a failure. As found out by Wilson and Howcroft, the reason for different viewpoints could be beyond technology involved, for instance, political reasons (Moody & Jordan, 1996). Many authors agree that the varied definitions of success and failure originated from varied views of stakeholders about factors that constitute failure or success of a system. Thus, assessment on effectiveness of a system requires different measures. System quality, user satisfaction, information quality, individual impact, use and organization impacts are six success measures which forms an integrated whole system according to DeLone and MacLean (Fowler & Horan, 2007). The difficulties in definition of information system success or failure are very many and complex. Therefore, single factor cannot attribute to an information system failure. Thus, failure of a system may be caused by a myriad of factors which impact on one another (Fowler & Horan, 2007). Critical success factors (CSFs) and critical failure factors (CFFs) in an information system implementation Six critical failure factors (CFFs) have been identified in literature, linked to information system failure. The inefficiency in a system includes lack of effective skills for project management or involvement, inadequate user involvement, lack of commitment by the top management to the project, inadequate skills and knowledge among the project personnel, inadequate or poor training of system user and the unwillingness of the users to co-operate during system changeover. (Fowler & Horan, 2007). Five critical success factors were found to influence the success of a system by (Jeremy et al 2007). The first factor is the commitment of the top management. The second factor is the commitment of the project team. The third factor is effective project management. The forth factor is the knowledge and skills of the project personnel (Fowler & Horan, 2007). The final factor is the enlisting of external contractors. These factors are consistent with those cited in literature to be behind information system success with the exception of enlisting of external contractors. The factors that influence success of a system are closely related from this discussion. Thus, the situation is not complex but instead it involves common factors (Fowler & Horan, 2007) Analysis of information systems failure a) Case study I: Library CBIS in a Finish scientific library The library is under the administration of a chief librarian and a governing board. The board is made up of chief librarian, one member (appointed by university director) and six members (appointed by the University council). The library has 11 departments four of which are involved in administrative acquisition duties (Jalonen, et al, 1999). Another department is the central library that is involved in the general collections. The other six departments are faculty libraries, which deals with specialized collections. The library stakeholders include varied customers, brokers, bookstores, publishers and national and international scientific libraries. The library customers include researchers, teachers and students. The library has 118 employees of which half are graduates. The library system was developed by international software house, which is found in many libraries in Finland. The introduction of the system in many libraries in Finland has greatly enhanced cooperation and communication among different libraries within Finland. In spite of these advantages, users have found the system very problematic (Jalonen, et al, 1999). i. Causes of failure From this case study, one of the causes of system failure was due to technical problems related to both hardware and software. This had a negative effect on the efficiency of the system and telecommunication. The software was sometimes non-responsive to commands. Thus, we can say that the cause of failure is related to development process of the system; therefore, it can be referred to as a process failure. This is because there seems to be unsatisfactory development performance. In addition, there was a problem with the user interface; many users being Finish and interface having been designed in English encountered several user based problems. (Jalonen, et al, 1999). This cause of system failure can be due to both poor management and development process involved. It was management and developer’s problem because the management could have negotiated with developers to design something that suits their needs while the developer’s problem was that they never consulted the management on their needs. In summary, this can be termed a correspondence failure (Avison, et al, 2006). Loss of data, wastage of time and dissatisfaction of customers were some of the reasons that led to the system failure. Thus, it is referred as a system usage failure since some tasks had to be performed manually. Therefore, this constituted interaction failure. Another cause of the CBIS system was inadequate skills and knowledge among system users. Lack of division of labour within the library also resulted in the system failure. (Jalonen, et al, 1999). This could be due to lack of the involvement of the top management in assigning different duties to different personnel. From the case study, it seems that the management is not committed to the implementation of the system. This generally resulted in to the overall project failure. Lessons from the failures From this case study, it is apparent that developers of information systems need to understand the requirements of their intended customer needs enhance system design and development that satisfies their needs (Avison, et al, 2006); this can help to avoid correspondence failures. In addition, they should ensure that their system uses a simple interface that can be understood by the users of which in most cases are technologically challenged. Furthermore, an organization introduces a new system to carry out employee hands on training on system use in order to reduce cases of system failures. In addition, the commitment of both the management and the project team is essential for the success of the system project. Case study II: The Case of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Three common characteristics were used to choose the cases. First, all cases had similar business. Second, all the cases had similar scope of CRM. Finally, all the cases had similar life cycle in the process of development. Informed employees were interviewed to collect retrospective data (Kim & Pan, 2006). In H-bank case, the CEO initiated and invested many resources in the CRM project and he ensured that there was management support for the project. Executives and managers were interviewed by the project team to ascertain their strategic requirements. Users of the system in the IT and business departments were trained by the project team on the ways to use the system. The project successful realized organizational and individual benefits at H-bank (Kim & Pan, 2006). In L-capital, the system was initiated on request by the IT department to the CEO. Even though, the CEO was willing to invest in the project when he was requested, he did not keep up his commitment to the project. However, the project obtained commitment from other managers and business executives but failed to attract senior management support hence the company outsourced the CRM project. Two system-developing companies and one consulting firm were deployed to implement the project. There was minimal cooperation in the implementation process among company employees. As a result, the design of the targeted system was hindered and thus system ineffectiveness leading to inefficiency in use. The integration of the system was partly successful and the project team trained users. In spite of all these, the quality of the system was low; implementation of the CRM process and system change over was ineffective. Thus, contributed to system failure (Kim & Pan, 2006). In P.net case, the CEO commissioned the CRM project even though heavy investments were required for the project. However, the CEO stopped championing for the project when it started. Thus, the management did not support the project fully while the project team did not receive support from IT and business teams; additionally, users participated passively (Kim & Pan, 2006). The project team lacked management skills. In addition, the team had limited technical skills and understanding of the legacy systems. Due to solitary designing process, the project team was unable to meet the requirements of P.net. Business teams were trained by the project team. The quality of the information system was very low. i. Causes of failure Failures in CRM systems of L-capital and P.net could be attributed to various causes. First is lack of organization commitment. The top management of these firms failed to commit themselves to the projects, this resulted in development of low quality systems, of which could not meet the needs of the firms. Second cause of failure is inadequacy in project management skills and knowledge, which negatively impacted on the development and implementation of the systems in P.net and L-capital. Lack of clear and specific CRM process for implementation was a contributing factor to failure in the two cases (Kim & Pan, 2006). Technologically problems that resulted from ineffective design and problems encountered in the realization of the systems was another cause of failure. Low quality and user satisfaction, reduced use of the system, which led to low benefits, were other reasons as to why the systems failed in L-capital and P.net. Lessons from the failures The commitment of the organization, proper project management skills, clear process with consensus, effective design, efficient realization, quality system, organizational and individual benefits are tantamount to realization of a successful information system. Without proper mix of these factors, the system is bound to fail either in the design or implementation stage (Avison, et al, 2006). Conclusion Managers can reduce failures in information systems in several ways. First, they need to be fully committed to the project. This should involve soliciting for the necessary resources, championing for the project and offer management support to the project team. Second, the management needs to ensure that there is an effective project management mechanism in place. This should involve a balanced management of IT and business requirement, balanced high IT skills, high business skills ability to manage change effectively by training users on the new system. The managers can also ensure that the information system is successful by building consensus among different players in the firm. The managers need to ensure that the project team selected can design an effective and efficient system. Finally, the management need to provide all necessary support to the project team to ensure that net benefits, use, and quality and user satisfaction is attained by the new system. Reference Avison, D., Gregor, S. & Wilson, D., 2006. Managerial IT Unconsciousness. Communications of the ACM, 49(7), pp. 88-93 Beynon-Davies, P., 1999. Human Error and Information Systems Failure: the Case o the London Ambulance Service Computer-Aided Despatch System Project. Interacting with Computers, 11, pp. 699-720. Fowler, J. & Horan P., 2007. Are Information Systems’ Success and Failure Factors Related? AN Exploratory Sty. Journal of Organizational and End User Computing, 19(2), pp. 1-22 Jalonen, K., Kirveennummi, M. & Torvinen, V., 1999. Problems, their Causes and Effects in the Use of Information Systems: A Case of a Scientific Library. Hershey: Idea Group Publishing. Kim, H. & Pan, S., 2006. Towards a Process Model of Information Systems Implementation: The Case of Customer Relationship Management (CRM). The Data Base for Advances in Information Systems, 37(1), pp. 59-76. Lyytinen, K. & Hirschheim, R., 1987. Information Systems Failures- A Survey and Classification f the Empirical Literature. Oxford Surveys in Information Technology, 4, pp. 257-309. Moody, J. & Jordan, D., 1996. The Training Challenge: Installing a POS for Improved Reporting and Customer Satisfaction. Sauer, C., 1993. Why Information Systems Fail: A Case Study Approach. Oxfordshire: Alfred Waller Ltd. Read More