CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS OF OFFSHORE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS

The results of the research project at hand aim to create a deeper understanding of successful project management in the realm of OSD. In this context, the major research goal is to support German-speaking clients in the successful implementation of OSD projects: Companies, which have not yet implemented such a project, shall be able to benefit from our research results in order to avoid typical mistakes in their initial projects. Companies, already in possession of OSD experience, shall be given the opportunity to compare their experiences with the results of our research project as well as to align their activities within ongoing OSD projects according to our results.

The specific contributions of this research project are:

·        A CSF model: This model can support managers with the successful implementation of an OSD project.

·        CSF relevance schemes: These schemes can help managers to focus their activities on a limited number of factors which are most critical within their project context, and, therefore, require particularly careful management attention.

·        CSF project phase specificity schemes: These schemes can help managers to concentrate their activities on areas which are specific for the current or upcoming phase of their OSD projects.

·        CSF level of influence schemes: These schemes can help managers to coordinate their management activities over the course of an OSD project.

·        A CSF relevance and management analysis in two organizational contexts: This analysis enables managers to compare or align their management activities within an OSD project to those emphasized by the two companies under study.

Along with these primarily practical contributions, the results of the research project also aim to provide a basis for further research with regard to the CSF of IT projects in general. In this context, Krcmar et al. (2004) state that CSF research comprises the identification and the examination of influencing factors that explain the success of a company or a project. However, CSF research in practice is often limited to the identification of CSF (e. g., Kuang, Lau, and Nah, 2001). Only a few researchers also analyze the identified factors in more detail, for instance, the relevance of these factors in general (e. g., Esteves and Pastor, 2000) or across different implementation stages (e. g., Nelson and Sumers, 2001). Further, only little research is conducted following a more holistic approach, including the identification of CSF, the analysis of CSF in different project contexts, as well as the management of these factors.

Altogether, the widespread focus on CSF identification and the great variety of research approaches applied for CSF research leads to confusion on how to carry out systematic research in this field. Therefore, in order to promote a unified agenda for CSF research, we derived lessons learned from the CSF research project presented within this research project and a second CSF research project in the field of portal engineering (Remus, 2006). In general, both research projects can be broken down into four phases: Literature review, CSF identification, CSF analysis, and CSF management (also compare Esteves, 2004).

By comparing both CSF research projects, we were able to draw the following conclusions: First, CSF research should not be limited to the identification stage. Rather, it should be extended to CSF analysis and management. Thus, the proposed research agenda can be seen as a first step towards a more holistic and systematic approach in CSF research. Second, we recommend the use of a multi-method research approach. According to Bonoma (1985), the application of different methods for data collection and analysis provides a wider range of coverage that may result in a deeper understanding of the unit under study. In addition, by using multiple research methods, the cross-validation of the data obtained by the different methods (method triangulation) can increase the robustness of the research results. Third, based on the four-phase approach for CSF research, we were able to derive lessons learned for each individual research phase.

Table: Lessons learned in CSF research

Taking into consideration our lessons learned in CSF research presented above, we believe that researchers can enhance the trustworthiness of their research. In this context, we refer to the trustworthiness criteria of qualitative research, introduced by Guba and Lincoln (1985): Credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability (compare section 2.4). With regard to these criteria, our CSF research approach improves the trustworthiness of the research results, for instance, by proposing the inclusion of different stakeholders and data sources during data collection (credibility), the integration of findings from the conducted literature review (transferability), the use of all categories emerging from the data (dependability), and the comparison of the derived CSF model with similar models in other IS fields (confirmability).

Finally, in an effort to provide a basis for further research with regard to the CSF of OSD projects in particular, we have outlined areas of future research, including, for instance, the comparison of the CSF to those of OSD projects in other nations, the analysis of interrelations between the CSF, the definition of KPI for the CSF, as well as the development of integrated management methods and tools for the CSF, and hope that this research project will encourage research in these areas.

References