MIS IMPLEMENTATION: An Investigation of Success Factors

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MIS IMPLEMENTATION An Investigation of
Success Factors
WDSI 97 Annual Meeting, Hawaii March 25 - 29,
1997

• Lara Preiser-Houy, Cal Poly Pomona
• Dana T. Edberg, University of Nevada, Reno
• Carole E. Agres, Rockwell International, CA

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Objective of the study

• Exploratory investigation
• to gain an in-depth understanding of IS
  implementation phenomenon
• Key research questions
• What characteristics of the IS software
  implementation effort contributed to the success
  of the project?

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MOTIVATION FOR THE STUDY

• IT implementation failures abound inspite of the
  improvements in the process of developing/
  implementing systems (Markus and Keil, 1994)
• While it is possible to implement successful
  systems, there is no one silver bullet that
  will create an IS project success (Brooks, 1987).
• An exploratory in-depth investigation of
  successful implementation project could
  contribute to our understanding of specific
  contextual patterns that produce success

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BACKGROUND

• Conceptual View of Implementation Activities
• project planning
• system development
• system operationalization
• Important to every project, but may not be
  sufficient to ensure a successful IS project
• Role of IS Professionals
• the way ISPs view and perform their role may
  contribute to success or failure of IS
  implementation (Markus and Benjamin, 1995)

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RESEARCH QUESTIONS

• Which key components of the implementation effort
  (above and beyond the traditional implementation
  activities frequently cited in IS literature)
  contributed to the success of the project?
• What factors prompted the IS project participants
  to go beyond their traditional roles to eanble
  project success?

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METHODOLOGY

• Case study strategy
• useful method to study a contemporary phenomenon
  in its real-life context (Yin, 1981)
• Unit of analysis
• IS project - Implementaiton of payroll/personnel
  packaged software at Zemax Manufacturing company
• Data Collection
• In-depth interviews with key project participants
  (users, management and ISPs)
• review of project documentation

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FINDINGS

• Company Background
• Medium-sized manufacturer of commercial and
  industrial products
• privately-owned organized into SBUs
• Corporate Services SBU provided payroll/personnel
  , marketing, legal and IS services
• Project Activities
• All the traditional implementation activities
  were performed for this project
• planning (e.g. project initiation, staffing),
  development (e.g. analysis, design,
  customization) and operationalization (e.g.
  installation and post-installation review)

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DISCUSSION

• Which key components of the implementation effort
  contributed to the success of the project?
• performing traditional implementation activities
  in a unique way that created
• alignment among business, organizational and
  technological strategies
• fostered commitment and ownership
• ensured skill mastery at all levels of the user
  organization

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DISCUSSION

• What factors provoked the project participants to
  go beyond their traditional roles to enable
  project success?
• ISPs and users acted as key stakeholders of the
  project - solving their own problems
• IS - cost reduction Payroll - service value to
  SBUs
• Users participated actively in all phases of
  systems implementation - team feeling and we
  attitude
• Client provided strong leadership and unambiguous
  goals

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CONCLUSION

• Traditional steps to succeed in IS implementation
  are incomplete
• This research revealed the following critical
  components of IS project success
• the alignment of business, organizational and
  technology strategies
• commitment of key stakeholders
• mastery and competence of key stakeholders
• the relative roles played by the project
  participants

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CONTRIBUTION TO THE IS FIELD

• More research is needed in the following areas
• the impact of traditional vs non-traditional role
  behavior by users and ISPs on the success/failure
  of the IS implementation project
• how traditional implementation activities can be
  conducted to align strategies, gain commitment
  and insure user mastery
• the causality between strategy alignment,
  commitment and mastery and traditional vs.
  non-traditional user behavior

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LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

• Low external validity
• to what extend the studys findings can be
  generalized?
• generalize to theory rather than population
  (analytical vs statistical generalization)
• multiple-case design with replication logic - the
  next step