The Impact of the critical factors influencing the success of IT projects in Sri Lankan context

Abstract

In a refinery the choice of a suitable crude oil slate is probably one of the most difficult problem that refiners have to resolve. The process of making the best choice includes the whole series of successive decisions to purchase different crud oils that refinery will process and globally which will generate the best economic results. Information technology (IT) has become a growing and demanding industry in today's world and it has become an important component in every business sector. Business firms invest heavily in information technology projects to achieve their strategic business goals. Thus IT organizations are focused to deliver the projects on time and within the budget to accomplish customer objectives. Different IT organizations use different types of mechanisms, methodologies and process models to successfully deliver the projects to achieve the competitive advantage but the ultimate outcome of the project vary drastically depending on various issues. In any project there are several factors which affect the ultimate outcome of the project and those factors are considered as critical factors to the project in the past literature. This study analyzes the impact of the critical factors influencing the success of IT projects. Majority of the literature related to critical factors have investigated several factors, factor groups and sub factors related to project success. This study comes up with a conceptual model that depicts the awareness of professionals in the IT industry regarding critical factors and perceived importance of critical factors on project success. Further the study examines the impact of those critical factors on project success and the recommendations in detail. The study has developed and distributed a questionnaire to a randomly selected sample of software development organizations in Sri Lanka. The sample characteristics show the age distribution, educational background and the experience of IT professionals. The interpretation of results has been performed by statistical analysis using the measures such as descriptive statistics and correlations. The results revealed that majority of the IT professionals aware that most of the factors are critical for project success but there are some factors where professionals are not much aware that those are critical for project success. When it comes to the order of perceived importance of critical factors, it is changing accordingly with the ultimate outcome of the project. Further project mission and clear objectives, technical background of the project team, communication skills, trouble-shooting, project schedules and planning, monitoring and feedback, top management support and client acceptance significantly influence project success.