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Maturity of sustainable development within information systems projects

- Marnewick, Carl

  • Authors: Marnewick, Carl
  • Date: 2017
  • Subjects: Sustainability , Information systems , Capability
  • Language: English
  • Type: Article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/236183 , uj:24165 , Citation: Marnewick, C. 2017. Maturity of sustainable development within information systems projects.
  • Description: Abstract: Sustainability or sustainability development has been a major topic of discussion over the last couple of years. Project management is also a discipline that is starting to focus on sustainability, but the focus is more on the environmental aspect of the project itself. Information systems (IS) projects do not have such a major impact on the environment as construction and engineering projects do. Should project managers that are implementing these ‘soft’ projects be concerned about sustainability? There is currently little or no knowledge about sustainability within the IS domain and whether sustainability is incorporated at all within IS projects. A structured questionnaire was adapted based on previous studies. It was circulated to the project management community within South Africa and a total of 1 099 responses were received. The responses covered all industries and for the purpose of this article, 387 IS projects (35.2% of the total projects) were analysed to determine the level of project management sustainability maturity. The objective of the study was to determine the level of capability regarding sustainability.
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The reality of adhering to best practices : the case of information system initiatives

- Marnewick, Carl

  • Authors: Marnewick, Carl
  • Date: 2017
  • Subjects: Project management - Standards , Information systems , Benefits management
  • Language: English
  • Type: Article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/222888 , uj:22398 , Citation: Marnewick, C. 2017. The reality of adhering to best practices : the case of information system initiatives.
  • Description: Abstract: Purpose: Standards are written by practitioners for practitioners. It is therefore logical that project managers should comply with project management standards. Benefits management is a domain within program management. The focus of benefits management is to deliver benefits of initiatives beyond the closure of a normal program or project. This is not the case with projects within the information systems (IS) discipline, implying that IS program and project managers are not adhering to standards. The purpose of this article is to determine whether the best practices associated with benefits management are applied to IS initiatives in order to maximise the benefits of these initiatives. Design/methodology/approach: Senior and middle managers in South African organisations were interviewed to determine how benefits are managed within their various projects. The purpose of the interviews was to determine adherence to standards and especially benefits management and, secondly, to determine whether these organisations are achieving any benefits and ultimately value. Findings: There is an overwhelming non-adherence to benefits management best practices within the IS discipline, and IS program and project managers do not have the slightest idea how to perform benefits management. Irrespective of this, organisations do believe that they are receiving benefits and value from these IS initiatives. Research limitations/implications: The research was only done in South Africa with the specific focus of information systems. The results are thus very specific and opens the door for more comprehensive research that focuses on various industries, countries and standards. Practical implications: The results have several implications ranging from how standards are written to the professionalism of IS programs and project managers. Organisations are not achieving the optimal benefits from investments. The fact that organisations do realise benefits from a broken process, implies that more benefits can be realised when the entire benefits realisation process is followed. Governance controls should also be put in place to ensure that program and project managers are adhering to standards. Originality/value: Standards are dominating the project management discipline and there is a general assumption that program and project managers are adhering these standards. This research queries the value of standards as the results indicate that there is limited adherence to standards and best practices.
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A tentative model for it outsourcing

- Muka, Jean‐Paul, Marnewick, Carl

  • Authors: Muka, Jean‐Paul , Marnewick, Carl
  • Date: 2017
  • Language: English
  • Type: Conference proceedings
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/231945 , uj:23643 , Citation: Muka, J.P. & Marnewick, C. 2017. A tentative model for it outsourcing. International Association for Management of Technology IAMOT 2017 Conference Proceedings.
  • Description: Abstract: Outsourcing projects involve many stakeholders, including clients who transfer the operational responsibility of their business processes, and a vendor who accepts that responsibility. IT outsourcing applies when the transferred responsibilities are limited to IT‐related processes. Outsourcing clients seek to leverage on potential efficiency provided by the vendor, whereby the vendor delivers the same intended business results at a cheaper cost. Vendors potentially achieve these efficiencies through better subject matter expertise and economies of scale. Clients outsource processes considered nonstrategic while strategic processes are managed in‐house. Once a client decides to outsource ITrelated processes, the outsourcing strategy takes the form of one or more of five delivery models. This article portrays a proposed model for successful IT outsourcing. This model assists the outsourcing professional in navigating through the various steps of the outsourcing life span with a clearer awareness of likely causes and potential remedies applicable to the outsourcing strategy on any given outsourcing project.
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Adapting IT management for effective IT strategy leadership

- Langa, Mthandeni, Marnewick, Carl

  • Authors: Langa, Mthandeni , Marnewick, Carl
  • Date: 2017
  • Subjects: Information technology - Management , Strategic planning
  • Language: English
  • Type: Conference proceedings
  • Identifier: http://ujcontent.uj.ac.za8080/10210/373894 , http://hdl.handle.net/10210/231957 , uj:23644 , Citation: Langa, M. & Marnewick, C. 2017. Adapting IT management for effective IT strategy leadership. International Association for Management of Technology IAMOT 2017 Conference Proceedings.
  • Description: Abstract: This article argues that the lack of consistent information technology (IT) and organisational strategies heightens the proclivity to cancel IT initiatives. Organisational strategy loosely conveys a compounded perspective pertaining to business and organisational strategies. The combination of these strategies logically hinge on efficient enterprise IT integration concepts contextualising conceptual links between their respective architectures to best suit prevailing business and socioeconomic needs. However, an effective socioeconomy demands contextual strategic management of IT, aligned with geopolitical and other factors affecting the nature of IT, to optimise the applied context of principles of governance and management. Strategic management of IT is alleviated by the concept of levels of abstraction inherent in the principle of separation of concerns. Hence the strategic use of the concept in ‘opinion’ formulation within the paradigm of a sociotechnical system design, development and management. Accordingly, optimal business performance demands that business and IT leadership and management develop mechanisms to establish symbiosis between governance and management principles, glued together by an adaptive enterprise‐wide standard architecture. There is therefore a contended need to integrate IT, processes and strategies. This demands that business and IT professionals possess an interdisciplinary and a multidisciplinary set of competencies. The perceived set of competencies supposedly help professionals to effectively navigate the interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary nature of information technology management (ITM). Thus the ensuing sociotechnical system constructs represent the challenge imposed by the journey to purposefully adapt ITM for effective IT strategy leadership for a competitive economic system. The research used an advanced mixed research methodology embedding quantitative methods in a qualitative study...
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Exploring patterns of sustainability stimuli of project managers

- Marnewick, Carl, Silvius, Gilbert, Schipper, Ron

  • Authors: Marnewick, Carl , Silvius, Gilbert , Schipper, Ron
  • Date: 2019
  • Subjects: Sustainability , Stimulus patterns , Project manager
  • Language: English
  • Type: Article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/397872 , uj:33093 , Citation: Marnewick, C., Silvius, G. & Schipper, R. 2019. Exploring patterns of sustainability stimuli of project managers. Sustainability 2019, 11, 5016; doi:10.3390/su11185016
  • Description: Abstract: Sustainable project management is becoming important and the sustainability concepts of people, the planet and profit needs to be incorporated into any type of project. This article focuses on the behavior of the project manager per se and the stimuli patterns that motivate them to adhere to sustainable project management. Three stimuli patterns are used i.e., intrinsically motivated, pragmatic and task driven. To determine which of these patterns influence a project manager, a quantitative pair-wise comparison was used. Twelve statements were used in a pair-wise comparison resulting in a combination of 66 questions. A sample of 101 project managers was analyzed to determine the stimuli patterns. The results indicate that the most prevalent stimulus pattern is the intrinsically motivated pattern with the other two patterns equally important. The results are consistent across gender, age and types of projects as well as industries. It can be concluded that for this study, project managers incorporate sustainability because they feel that it is something they should do. The motivation to consider sustainability is dominated by their behavioral beliefs and the characteristics of the project, or the opinion of others, do not play a large role. This research contributes to the larger body of knowledge with regards to sustainable project management and specifically to the human behavior of project managers. This research addresses the gap that currently exists in current literature where the focus is on the product’s sustainability and sustainable processes.
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Investing in project management certification : do organisations get their money’s worth?

- Joseph, Nazeer, Marnewick, Carl

An investigation into the governance of information technology projects in South Africa

- Marnewick, Carl, Labuschagne, Les

Earn your wings : a novel approach to deployment governance

- Petit, Yvan, Marnewick, Carl

An analysis of the maturity of project management as a discipline

- Labuschagne, Les, Marnewick, Carl

  • Authors: Labuschagne, Les , Marnewick, Carl
  • Date: 2009
  • Subjects: Project management
  • Type: Article
  • Identifier: uj:6197 , ISBN 978-1-920017-43-9 , http://hdl.handle.net/10210/5277
  • Description: Project management (PM) is a career that annually attracts many people, despite not providing project managers with the same professional status as a medical doctor or chartered accountant. These disciplines are globally recognised as being mature and professional. The purpose of this article is to investigate and analyse the maturity of the PM discipline. Many organisations invest resources in PM, believing that it can be used to complete all new initiatives successfully. Several surveys have shown that many projects still fail to deliver the expected results. In order to understand the reason for projects still failing, the maturity ofthe discipline needs to be investigated. The article follows a qualitative research approach and uses a literature survey to determine what constitutes a mature discipline. Using the fmdings of this survey, an analysis is done ofPM as a discipline. The result is an objective, independent assessment of the maturity of PM and an indication ofwhether it can be considered a profession. The benefit of this article is that it provides evidence on the maturity ofthe PM discipline. It also highlights the areas that must be focused on, from a PM perspective, to ensure that PM evolves into a more mature and professional discipline.
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The symbiosis between information system project complexity and information system project success

- Marnewick, Carl, Erasmus, Wikus, Joseph, Nazeer

Ensuring succesful ERP implementations using the vision-to-project framework

- Marnewick, Carl

  • Authors: Marnewick, Carl
  • Date: 2011-09-15T08:16:55Z
  • Subjects: Enterprise resource planning systems , Management information systems , Business planning , Project management
  • Type: Thesis
  • Identifier: uj:7219 , http://hdl.handle.net/10210/3852
  • Description: PhD. (Computer Science) , Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are implemented within organisations to enable them to work more efficiently and enhance productivity. They also ensure that different levels of information are available to managers within the organisation for strategic and tactical decision-making. The implementation of ERP systems is often associated with great costs, they are resource intensive and cover the whole organisation. The implementation of ERP systems is perceived as a project that often fails owing to overrun on cost and time. The return on investment (ROI) is also often questioned once an ERP system has been implemented, since the organisation does not always see the benefits of the ERP system versus the effort and cost of implementing it. The purpose of this thesis is twofold: firstly it determines what an ERP system is and whether it can be subdivided into different components. The focus of this section is on the operational side of an ERP system to determine how it is managed and operated within an organisation. The second focus is on the way that ERP systems are implemented and the management that goes hand in hand with this implementation. The first focus area is addressed by developing a model that explains ERP and the different components within it. It describes the interactions between the different components and how the ERP system affects the organisation. This model provides a better understanding of an ERP system and shows the technology to be mature. The second focus area is addressed by a framework that assists organisations in deriving projects from the organisational vision. This ensures that the implementation of an ERP system will directly support the organisation’s vision and strategies. This addresses the issue of determining the value of the ERP system as well as ROI. The framework also provides alternative ways and methods that can be used to implement ERP systems. The value of this research is firstly that it provides a holistic model of what constitutes an ERP system and its effect on the organisation. ERP systems change not only the financial systems, but also the way the organisation operates. They introduce organisational change. The value of the framework is that it can assist organisations in identifying and implementing projects that will enable the implementation of the organisation’s vision and strategies. This will eliminate any favoured projects that are not in support of the organisation’s vision and can save the organisation’s scarce resources that would have been wasted on these projects. The framework can also assist organisations in determining if they must implement an ERP system and what value this implementation will have for the organisation.
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Infusing African management philosophy into project management

- Marnewick, Carl, Erasmus, Wikus, Joseph, Nazeer

Defensive reactions as potential reasons for IT project management failures

- Marnewick, Carl, Roodt, Gerhard (Gert)

  • Authors: Marnewick, Carl , Roodt, Gerhard (Gert)
  • Date: 2017
  • Language: English
  • Type: Conference proceedings
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/242046 , uj:24956 , Citation: Marnewick, C. & Roodt, G. 2017. Defensive reactions as potential reasons for IT project management failures.
  • Description: Abstract: The aim of this paper is to establish how much empirical research is conducted on defensive reasoning or defensive reactions as possible reasons for IT project failure. In order to address this objective a systematic literature review was conducted. Only a few articles were identified that made specific reference to barriers in organisational social structures that prevent organisational learning from taking place. It is argued that defensive mechanisms on an individual level and defensive reasoning on a team or organisational level play a major role in IT project failures mainly because it prevents people from learning from their or other’s mistakes. In order for learning to take place, organisational defense routines should be minimised so that real reasons for project failure can be identified and addressed in an innovative and constructive manner.
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Herzberg! Can we trust you in Africa?

- Marnewick, Carl

  • Authors: Marnewick, Carl
  • Date: 2011-02
  • Subjects: Information technology , Project management , Motivation , Herzberg’s two-factor theory
  • Type: Article
  • Identifier: uj:5824 , ISSN 1993-8233 , http://hdl.handle.net/10210/7841
  • Description: Information technology (IT) projects are implemented through individual team members. These projects are fairly long in duration, especially enterprise resource planning projects. The problem that IT project managers face is how to motivate the team members, particularly in an African context where a team consists of various cultures and races. This paper presents results of a quantitative research study in which team members were asked to rank their motivating factors on a scale of 1 to 12 based on Herzberg’s two-factor theory. The reason for using this theory is that, it was found to still be applicable after 50 years of its establishment. The purpose was to determine whether Herzberg’s two-factor theory is applicable in an African context and if so, what unique factors could motivate IT team members in Africa. The research indicates that race, age and gender are not indicators and that there is a general tendency that the motivating factors of Herzberg can be used to motivate team members. The implication is that IT project managers can use Herzberg’s two-factor theory to motivate individual team members. The research also adds to the current body of knowledge that Africans are not motivated by hygiene factors.
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Incorporating sustainability into IT project management in South Africa

- Clinning, Grant, Marnewick, Carl

  • Authors: Clinning, Grant , Marnewick, Carl
  • Date: 2017
  • Subjects: Sustainability , Project management , IT project management
  • Language: English
  • Type: Article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/238095 , uj:24406 , Citation: Clinning, G. & Marnewick, C. 2017. Incorporating sustainability into IT project management in South Africa. South African Computer Journal 29(1), 1–26. DOI: https://doi.org/10.18489/sacj.v29i1.398. , ISSN: 1015-7999 (Print) , ISSN: 2313-7835 (Online)
  • Description: Abstract: The concept of sustainability is becoming more and more important in the face of dwindling resources and increasing demand. Despite this, there are still many industries and disciplines in which sustainability is not actively addressed. The requirement of meeting current and future needs is not an issue from which IT projects are exempt. Ensuring sustainability requires managing sustainability in all activities. The field of IT and sustainability is one in which literature is appearing, but at a slow pace and this leaves many unanswered questions regarding the state of sustainability in IT projects and the commitment of IT project managers to sustainability. In not knowing what the state of sustainability is, potential shortcomings remain unknown and corrective action cannot be taken. Quantitative research was conducted through the use of a survey in the form of a structured questionnaire. This research was cross-sectional as the focus was to assess the state of sustainability at a single point in time. IT project managers were randomly sampled to get an objective view of how committed they were to sustainability. This research made use of a project management sustainability maturity model to measure the extent to which sustainability is incorporated into IT projects. The findings are that IT project managers are not committed to sustainability. While the economic dimension yielded the best results, they were not ideal, and it is in fact the social and environmental dimensions that require the most attention. This lacking commitment to the social and environmental dimensions is not limited to select aspects within each dimension, as each dimension’s aspects are addressed to a similarly poor extent. This research suggests that sustainability needs to become a focus for IT project managers, but for this to happen, they require the relevant project management sustainability knowledge.
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The business case thrives on relevant information

- Marnewick, Carl, Einhorn, Frank

Achieving strategic benefits from business IT projects : the critical importance of using the business case across the entire project lifetime

- Einhorn, Frank, Marnewick, Carl, Meredith, Jack

The ability of project managers to implement industry 4.0-related projects

- Marnewick, Annlize L., Marnewick, Carl

Sustainable livelihoods of township small, medium and micro enterprises towards growth and development

- Bvuma, Stella, Marnewick, Carl

  • Authors: Bvuma, Stella , Marnewick, Carl
  • Date: 2020
  • Subjects: Information communication technology (ICT) , Sustainable livelihood approach (SLA) , Sustainability livelihood framework (SLF)
  • Language: English
  • Type: Article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/431484 , uj:37233 , Citation: Bvuma, S. & Marnewick, C. 2020. Sustainable livelihoods of township small, medium and micro enterprises towards growth and development.
  • Description: Abstract: In South Africa, small, medium, and micro enterprises (SMMEs) have been recognized as the critical driving force to alleviate some economic challenges that the country faces. The challenges, such as the alleviation of poverty and the unemployment rate, can be addressed by policies that encourage SMME developments and sustainability. The historical background of SMMEs in South Africa has left them operating in various locations, such as cities and townships. There is a growing concern of the lack of information and communications technology (ICT) adoption by SMMEs, in particular those operating in townships. The aim of this study was to develop an ICT adoption framework using the sustainability livelihood framework (SLF) to encourage ICT adoption and improve the livelihood of township SMMEs. This study used the sustainable livelihood framework (SLF) to explore the broader socio-economic contents of the township SMMEs on human, social, financial, and physical and natural resource-based assets that enable the poor to enhance their capabilities and reduce their vulnerabilities. This study deployed a qualitative exploratory research. A sample of 21 SMME owners/managers operating in Soweto was used, and data were collected using in-depth interviews and observations. The study revealed township SMMEs are complex and dynamic and need various interventions in order for them to be sustainable. The SLF for township SMMEs can be used as a guideline for SMME owners/managers and policy makers when formulating ICT adoption policy.
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Waterfall and Agile information system project success rates—a South African perspective

- Khoza, Lucas, Marnewick, Carl

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