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De-escalating IT projects: the DMM model

Authors:

Donal Flynn,

Gary Pan,

Mark Keil,

Magnus MähringAuthors Info & Claims

Communications of the ACM, Volume 52, Issue 10

Pages 131 - 134

https://doi.org/10.1145/1562764.1562797

Published: 01 October 2009 Publication History

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Abstract

Introduction

Taming runaway Information Technology (IT) projects is a challenge that most organizations have faced and that managers continue to wrestle with. These are projects that grossly exceed their planned budgets and schedules, often by a factor of 2--3 fold or greater. Many end in failure; failure not only in the sense of budget or schedule, but in terms of delivered functionality as well.

Runaway projects are frequently the result of escalating commitment to a failing course of action, a phenomenon that occurs when investments fail to work out as envisioned and decision-makers compound the problem by persisting irrationally. Keil, Mann, and Rai reported that 30--40% of IT projects exhibit some degree of escalation. To break the escalation cycle, de-escalation of commitment to the failing course of action must occur so that valuable resources can be channeled into more productive use. But, making de-escalation happen is neither easy nor intuitive.

This article briefly examines three approaches that have been suggested for managing de-escalation. By combining elements from the three approaches, we introduce a de-escalation management maturity (DMM) model that provides a useful framework for improving practice.

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Index Terms

De-escalating IT projects: the DMM model
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Management of computing and information systems

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Published In

Communications of the ACM Volume 52, Issue 10

A View of Parallel Computing

October 2009

134 pages

ISSN:0001-0782

EISSN:1557-7317

DOI:10.1145/1562764

Issue’s Table of Contents

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 01 October 2009

Published in CACM Volume 52, Issue 10

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Weber LHermann K(2024)Herausforderung des De-Eskalationsmanagements in einem volatilen Umfeld – Ist Projektmanagement in der Finanzbranche vollumfänglich etabliert?Finance-Perspektiven im Wandel10.1007/978-3-658-42840-2_17(289-304)Online publication date: 13-Feb-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-42840-2_17
Wu XTsai JLei Y(2023)Information Technology Project Management Research: A Review of Works by Influential PioneersProject Management Journal10.1177/8756972823117105654:4(366-391)Online publication date: 29-May-2023
https://doi.org/10.1177/87569728231171056
Hammami SDurrah OJamil SEltigani M(2022)Engaging Knowledge Capabilities to Sustain the Application of Information Technology Governance in Healthcare InstitutionsSage Open10.1177/2158244022113278312:4Online publication date: 21-Oct-2022
https://doi.org/10.1177/21582440221132783
Mehrizi MModol JNezhad M(2019)Intensifying to ceaseMIS Quarterly10.25300/MISQ/2019/1371743:1(141-166)Online publication date: 1-Mar-2019
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Abstract

References

Cited By

Index Terms

Recommendations

De-escalating information technology projects: lessons from the Denver International Airport

Job Shadowing in Information Technology Projects: A Source of Competitive Advantage

Outsourcing projects success: the role of competence and leadership of the vendors and clients project managers

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