Assessment of why software projects fail in government organization in Ethiopia
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Date
2017-02
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Publisher
A.A.U
Abstract
In a country like Ethiopia, where information and communication systems are in the
early stage of development, software projects may face several challenges. Software
projects may suffer from schedule or budget overrun or unmet specifications, leading to
failure. This paper aims at assessing the major factors that can lead to software project
failure in government organizations in Ethiopia. This research used quantitative and
qualitative methods. Factors affecting software projects failure are identified based on
extensive literature review. The quantitative aspect of the study involved 48 practitioners
and end users from government organizations and 24 from software companies. In the
qualitative study, direct interviews were used to collect data from 4 senior IT managers
in the government organizations. The quantitative data were analyzed by employing
appropriate techniques of descriptive statistics using SPSS and MS-Excel software tool.
The qualitative data were analyzed using the techniques of open codding. The result of
the study indicated that the major factors for the failure of software project in
government organization are lack of ICT department as well as user involvement in
software projects and lack of knowledge management. Lack of top management
support and Lack of skilled ICT professionals and end users are also the major reason
for the failure of software projects. In addition, the result revealed loss of confidence by
stakeholders was major effects of software project failure. It is recommended that
engaging ICT professionals as well as users in the whole course of the project and
capacity building for end users and ICT professionals is important to minimize failure of
software projects in government organizations and there is also need to gain confidence
of stakeholders by increasing the success rate of software projects. Furthermore, long
term strategy for knowledge management in the area of software project management
is also important.
Description
A Thesis Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies of Addis Ababa University in Partial Fulfillment of
The Requirements for the Degree of Master
Of Science in Information Science
Keywords
Practitioners, Software projects, Software projects failure