Learning and making sense of project phenomena in information systems education

One out of three IT/IS projects fail because such projects either miss the targets or fail to deliver the required business functionality [27, 32]. Project management practice for IS and IT and education is aligned to certification programs such as the PMBOK. These programs and practices primarily focus on defined processes, templates and concepts that require an almost instrumental application. Key assumptions made about project phenomena in approaches such as PMBOK are that projects already have an existing structure, and implementation is mostly linear, sequential and more about control through measurement and monitoring. The popularity of agility implies that these assumptions do not necessary hold for IS projects. There is thus a need for alternative educational discourses that promote learning and sense making.

In response, this paper presents an approach that emphasizes learning and sense making because the research literature highlights the need for such abilities amongst graduates. The paper further explores assumptions made about cognition and learning in existing IS project management educational practices. These are compared with embodied cognition assumptions because the researchers feel these are more realistic assumptions to have. An overview of a discourse underpinned by embodied cognition is proposed. This paper also reports on a case study description of an implementation cycle of this alternative IS project management approach. The study describes how third year students majoring in Information Systems used selected conceptual readings as theoretical lenses to explain, understand and reason about their individual experiences during a systems development group project thereby learning about project phenomena. The paper concludes by echoing the importance of learning and sense making to understand IS project related phenomena. The contribution this paper makes is that it clarifies assumptions about human nature that ought to underpin IS project management practices.