Question 1. Executives stress that they want and need IT improvements that will help their organizations be more competitive and profitable. They are eager to sponsor IT acquisition projects that they believe will help them improve the return on investment in their areas and perhaps gain a competitive advantage. While executives continue to sponsor such IT systems, they nevertheless also complain about the growing complexity of these systems. Some executives say they don't use some systems? or use only some of their capabilities? because they are too complicated to understand and use. Others complain that the new systems place unexpected, burdensome demands on them. Business intelligence systems, for example, can provide managers with valuable decision information, but they require that managers first agree on the underlying metrics (performance measures), including the data to be captured, the method of data analysis, and what constitutes "good" and "not good" results. As another example, IT research firms point out that many organizations have implemented IT portfolio management systems but very few come close to using the full capabilities or potential of such systems.

Your Question: You are a consultant brought in by the executive committee to make recommendations for alleviating the "IT complexity" concerns of the executives at the company. The executive committee explains that there are growing levels of complexity of the state-of-the-art IT systems the company has been implementing to remain competitive. Your recommendations should take into account the desire of executives to sponsor such systems to improve ROI and achieve other objectives, though they have increasing concerns with the complexity. Your recommendations to solve the problem need to be practical in terms of the demands placed on executives, the demands placed on the IT support staff and others, and the cost of implementing your recommendations.

Question 2. Fixed price IT contracts are attractive to buyer organizations because buyers believe these contracts shift almost all of the risk to the contractor. The federal government is striving to use fixed-price contracts as much as possible for IT acquisition contracts as a method to control the cost of IT projects.

Your Question. It is recognized that fixed-price contracts offer obvious advantages to buyer organizations because they transfer almost all of the risk to the contractor. Some observers argue that buyers cannot become complacent when using fixed price contracts because they still retain certain risks. What risks, if any, may the buyer organizations be assuming when they rely on fixed-price contracts?

Question 3. In their requests for proposals, federal government agencies generally require IT service contractors to use IT acquisition best practices. However, there is no federal law or regulation requiring federal agencies to use best practices.

Your Question. A federal agency that does not use IT acquisition best practices issued a request for proposal that requires the contractor selected to use such practices, including certification at CMMI Level 3 or above. The contractors responding to this request for proposal cannot require the agency to use such practices. What can the contractor selected by the agency do to minimize the problems that could develop because the contractor uses best practices but the agency does not?

Question 4. A frequent occurrence is for an IT acquisition project that is behind schedule and over budget to continue out of control until the costs become intolerable or some other event causes it to end, resulting in much waste of resources with few or no benefits.

Your Question. Your question has two parts. (a) Who is or should be responsible for monitoring the performance of IT acquisition projects and taking action that may result in cancelling the project? (b) Under what conditions, if any, should an IT acquisition project that is seriously behind the planned schedule and significantly over the planned budget be allowed to continue?

Question 5. An IT acquisition guidance document states "there is a growing realization that the real work of acquisition is in contract management." At the same time, there is a decrease in the success rate of IT projects, as noted in this copied excerpt (typos included) from the April 23, 2009 Standish Group's news release:

The Standish Group's just-released report, "CHAOS Summary 2009," "This year's results show a marked decrease in project success rates, with 32% of all projects succeeding which are delivered on time, on budget, with required features and functions" says Jim Johnson, chairman of The Standish Group, "44% were challenged which are late, over budget, and/or with less than the required features and functions and 24% failed which are cancelled prior to completion or delivered and never used."

"These numbers represent a downtick in the success rates from the previous study, as well as a significant increase in the number of failures", says Jim Crear, Standish Group CIO, "They are low point in the last five study periods. This year's results represent the highest failure rate in over a decade"

Your Question: Your question has two parts.

(a) To what extent do the statements from the two sources complement each other or conflict with each other? Briefly explain your answer.

(b) What is the likely reason or reasons for the downtick in project success rates of IT projects and what recommendations would you make to improve the success rates? Be specific.