A holistic approach to information technology project management auditing

• Main Author: Mukendi, John Nyabadi
• Published: 2012
• Subjects: Project management; Information technology projects - Management; Corporate governance
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/7911

M.Tech. (Information Technology) === Increasingly, more now than before, the corporate world has been paying more attention to the prominent topic of “governance”. The absence of governance in an organisation or ineffective governance has become synonymous with all that is wrong. It is regarded to be the root cause of all evils – not only in the corporate environment, but also in society. Following corporate scandals of recent years that have exposed corporate malpractices and mismanagement, corporate governance is increasingly being recognised worldwide as a best practice and an effective mechanism that not only promotes corporate efficiency, competitiveness and sustainability, but is also a tool for combating corporate corruption. The audit function is considered one of the main supporting pillars of corporate governance, as it plays an important role in helping management attain its business goals and strategic objectives. This is realised through a systematic and disciplined approach to evaluating and improving the effectiveness of the organisation’s system of internal control, risk management and governance processes. The failure of the audit function is said to have been one of the critical contributors to recent global corporate scandals. Robust auditing is believed to be the cornerstone of modern corporate governance. The use of auditing in project management processes increases the probability of project success. Using corporate governance as a best practice and audit as one of its sub-sets, this research study deals with the topical issue of failures in Information Technology (IT) projects. The study strives to address this problem by adopting a holistic approach to IT project management auditing that includes corporate governance principles over and above the traditional principles and processes for auditing IT projects. Over the past 15 to 20 years, the rate of failure of IT projects has changed little in continual surveys, showing that more than half of all IT projects overrun their schedules and budgets. This situation has continued in spite of new technologies, innovative methods, tools and different management methods. Although most organisations heavily rely on IT-enabled projects for competitive advantage, it is estimated that worldwide over $6.2 trillion is being wasted annually on IT project failures. One of the reasons for this situation has allegedly been the failure of project governance. Thus, the importance and added value of this research study lies in adopting a holistic approach to IT project management auditing. The study involves corporations and not government agencies or other institutions. The study adopts a qualitative research approach and uses semi-structured face-to-face interviews as the primary method for data collection. It is intended that this study fills a gap in the research literature on the topic.