The impact of organizational politics on information systems project failure-a case study

Abstract

The information systems literature has long been concerned with the factors that influence success or failure in information systems development projects. Factors such as top management support, user involvement and the use of effective development methodologies have often been quoted as essential for success. This paper reports on a case study into an information system project in a large public sector organization which, at least initially, had most of the traditional success factors operating in its favour. Nevertheless, the project was terminated early without delivering any software product. The reasons for the termination seemed purely political and the research reported in this paper sets out to analyze what happened to the project and why. Data for the study was obtained by a combination of project document analysis, participant interviews and widely distributed questionnaires.