revealed causal mapping of it/is project risk
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Revealed causal mapping of IT/IS project risk. Robert T. Hughes, University of Brighton, UK. Overview of the talk. Locating project risk management in the research world Metrics versus management information Need for causal models Challenge of quantification Future directions. - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
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Revealed causal mapping of IT/IS project risk
Robert T. Hughes, University of Brighton, UK
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Overview of the talk
Locating project risk management in the research world
Metrics versus management information Need for causal models Challenge of quantification Future directions
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Locating risk management researchHirschheim and Smithson framework
Efficiency zoneHardware/software monitor, Simulation, Code inspection, Software metrics, Quality assurance, TQM
Effectiveness zoneSystem usage, Cost benefit analysis, Critical success factors, Risk analysis, Resource utilisation, Economics, Management,
Understanding zonePersonal constructs, Context-content-process, Political analysis, Organisational behaviour
Objective/rational
Subjective/political
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Software metrics – in my day… Focus on engineering approach Would like software to be physical product Measurements tied to specific ‘physical’
entities Focus on measurement practice
Often quite negative – demonstrating why measurements invalid
Dearth of positive achievement
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Need for ‘management information’ Management is concerned with allocation of
resources This allocation needs to be seen to be fair
and just Therefore needs to be linked to objective
indicators of need, merit, productivity etc., etc.
This implies that measurement needs to be based on theories of causation
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Revealed causal mapping Strongly influenced by Kelly’s concept of
personal constructs – sees human behaviour based on ‘model building’ about cause and effect
Each construct has a positive and negative pole
A network of constructs and the cause and effect relationships between them can be built
Note that the maps describe perceptions – hence often called ‘cognitive’ mapping
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Fragment of a RCM
experience ofdevelopers remedial work
time pressure
product quality
+
–
–
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Experienced staff … inexperienced
low staff turn-over… high
High productivity… low
Deadlines met… missed
Heavy management pressure…low
Uncertain user requirements … certain
Unstable environment…unstable
High salaries…low
Requirements prototype…not
High costs…low costs
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What RCMs can illustrate
‘Tail’ constructs are those that have no prior cause within the scope of the map
Tails could be: Environment e.g. ‘low staff turnover…high’ Policy e.g. ‘requirements prototype…not’
Constructs can be subject to both negative and positive influences – shows uncertainty
Between two constructs there can be both positive and negative relationships
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Comparison with other mapping approaches – physical models Systems dynamics
SD involves building a mathematical model which attempts to represents the real world system
Question of validation of each relationship identified in SD model
Very labour intensive Root cause analysis
Analysis of the circumstances of a particular situation: actual events rather than situational factors
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Comparison with other approaches - perceptual Cognitive mapping – people’s perceptions:
But how do you know they are telling the truth? >>> ‘Revealed’ causal mapping
Reasoning maps - the way people make decisions Accuracy of predicting actual decisions? Effectiveness of decisions?
Healthy people’s perceptions should be close to reality?
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Reasoning maps: problem of indeterminate outcomes
experience ofdevelopers remedial work
time pressure
product quality
+
–
–
Need for some kind of quantification
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Approaches to ‘intermediate’ quantification Fuzzy cognitive maps
Allow values to be set for tail nodes and edges Can execute the model and study dynamic
behaviour The presentation of FCMs can be off-putting for
non-mathematicians Reasoning maps are a ‘user-friendly’ alternative
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Using ordinal indicators
Allow us to model quantification without actual measurement
Allocate ordinal values to tail nodes For example
Very strong, strong, medium, weak, very weak Allocate value to the strength of the causal
links Very strong, strong, medium, weak, very weak
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Propagating values
Methods can vary e.g. Where there is a single cause, use:
minimum (node_value, edge_value)
strongmedium
medium
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Where there is more than one causal link
Identify minima as before Take the maximum result This implies an independent ‘OR’ relationship
between two causal factors Other relationships possible e.g. compensatory
factors – take the median
strong
medium
weak
strong
medium
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Our use of RCMs As a teaching and learning tool – can be
used in text analysis Project risk management – used to study
failed projects retrospectively Asked participants to map causes of failure
individually – large differences in perception Follow-up by consensual map-building – group
consensus appeared to be relatively easy Differences in perceptions of managers and
development staff Attempt at building a ‘core model’ of project risk
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Our use of RCMs As a method of designing service
management information systems Identify the problem domain Stakeholders collaboratively build the model Identify measurements:
That can corroborate model That can act as predictive and summative performance
indicators Examine what effects performance indicators
might have
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Future work: Generic project risk model
PolicyRisk
Avoidance…commitment
Risksituation…
RiskExposure…
RiskreductionPolicy
Riskoccurrence
Damage..benefit
Contingency preparation
Contingencyaction
Policy
Covers risk tactics of avoidance, reduction and mitigation
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Future plans
Developing tools e.g. analogy seeking ‘White fly experiment’ – risk model for student
projects
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Further details Al-Shehab, A., Hughes R.T. and Winstanley G . (2006). CorMod: A causal mapping
approach to identifying project development risk. European & Mediterranean Conference on Information Systems (EMCIS) 2006, July 6-7, Alicante, Spain.
Hughes R.T., Al-Shehab A., and Winstanley G. (2006). Obstacles to the modelling of the causes of project success and failure. In Dan Remenyi (Ed), Proceedings of the 5th European Conference on Research Methods in Business & Management, Trinity Colledge, Dublin, Ireland, 17-18 July, pp 179-186.
Al-Shehab A.,Hughes R.T. and Winstanley G. (2005). Modelling Risks in IS/IT Projects through Causal and Cognitive Mapping. Electronic Journal of Information Systems Evaluation (EJISE), Vol.8, No.1, pp 1-10, January 2005
Hughes R.T., Al-Shehab A., and Winstanley G. (2005). The use of casual mapping in the design of management information systems. Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Research Methodology for Business and Management Studies (ECRM-05), held at the University of Paris-Dauphine, France, 21-22 April 2005
Al-Shehab A., Huhghes R.T. and Winstanley G. (2004). Using Causal Mapping Methods to Identify and Analyse Risk in Information System Projects as a Post-Evaluation Process. Proceedings of the 11th European Conference on Information Technology Evaluation (ECITE 2004) held at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, Amsterdam, 11-12 November 2004
R.T.Hughes, A. Al Shehab, M.Eastwood. ‘The use of cognitive causal mapping as an aid to professional reflection’. CHI workshop on ‘The Reflective Practitioner’ Vienna, April 2004.
See - http://www.cmis.brighton.ac.uk/research/cig/