As Lived Experience in Arriving at Information Systems Project

As lived experience in arriving at Information Systems project objectives
Flora Mpazanje, University of Cape Town, Department of information Systems, Private Bag X, Rondebosch 7700, Cape Town, South Africa. [phone] [e-mail] Kosheek Sewchurran, University of Cape Town, Department of Information Systems, Private Bag X, Rondebosch 7700, Cape Town, South Africa. [e-mail] The study may assist project practitioners and researchers understand project process in a more true to life manner, on how project objectives are formulated. This may encourage some better ways of managing IS projects towards success. The study might be relevant to PM institutions as well, especially when they would be updating their PM guides. Apart from validating ANT further as a lens for understand IS projects better, the study may also offer an understanding of IS projects in an African context. This may allow practitioners appreciate challenges faced by actors in this environment. II.LITERATURE REVIEW The increase in adoption of project driven approaches across sectors has persuaded institutions such as PMI to promote rules of the game and standards to guide the PM practice [7, 11, 47]. One of the rules is as set out by the definition of a project widely used in the Project Management domain as well as in the academia [38, 35]. From various definitions of a project [13 p2, 35p5, 38 p33], a project has a clear and definite outcome that is to be delivered on a specified date using specified resources. In reality, especially for IS projects, that is often not the case [47, 34] due to the fact that often requirements are not clear at the initial stage of the project. In addition, exogenous factors such as personal objectives and managers’ experience may also influence some aspects of the project, thereby reshaping its outcome all together [8, 13, 23]. It is not feasible, therefore, to budget for both resources and time in advance. The definitions emphasise the

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