11. IT projects - new paradigms?
Real Options Pricing Models (ROPMs)
• Suitable for large IT infrastructure investments
• Future revenue streams are unclear (unsuccessful ?)
• Invest now – harvest later
• An initial expenditure on IT creates the right, but not the
obligation to obtain the benefits associated with further
development
• Management has the freedom to cancel, defer, restart, or
expand the project
pag. 11
12. IT projects - new paradigms?
Organizing for High Reliability: Processes of Collective
Mindfulness (Weick, 1999)
• Preoccupation with failure (“Failure is not an option”)
• Reluctance to simplify interpretation
(beware of ‘frameworks’, ‘models’, ‘mindsets’, …)
• Sensitivity to operations (“situational awareness”)
• Commitment to resilience (“continuous management of
fluctuations”)
pag. 12
13. IT projects - new paradigms?
Lessons from HROs
• The expectation of surprise is an organizational resource because it
promotes attentiveness and discovery
• Anomalous events should be treated as outcomes rather than as
accidents, to encourage search for sources and causes
• Errors should be made as conspicuous as possible to undermine selfdeception and concealment
• Reliability requires diversity, duplication, overlap, and a varied response
repertoire, whereas efficiency requires homogeneity, specialization, nonredundancy and standardization (bricolage?)
• Interpersonal skills are just as important in HROs as are technical skills
pag. 13
14. IT projects - new paradigms?
The sociomateriality of IS (Orlikowski, 2007/8)
• A relational view of organizations and IS as sociomaterial
arrangements of human and non-human actors
• Assumes inherently inseparable sociality and materiality of
IS
• IS enactments can create different kind of realities in
practice
• E.g. Why is one ERP implementation successful and why is
another one considered as a failure?
pag. 14
15. Conclusions
• PM does not guaranteed success nor eliminates failures
(IS success models)
• PM too much focused on ‘how-to-do’
• Management of meaning iso management of control ?
• Critical perspective on projects: focus on values (technology
is not neutral), ethics and morality equally important than
efficiency & effectiveness
• Trust vs Control (Devos, 2009)
2003, The chimpanzees’ tea party: a new metaphor for project manager (Drummond & Hodgson)
2006, New Possibilities for Project Management Theory: A Critical Engagement (Cicmil & Hodgson)
pag. 15