ROOT CAUSES OF CHANGE IN IT PROJECTS

In this paper the author studied 58 IT projects implemented during the period 2006 -2007 and attempted to categorize the root causes of changes in those projects as well as identify the frequency of occurrence changes driven by each of those categories.The author also tried to discover relationships between the number of changes occurring and various project variables like project size, duration, etc.The research concluded that 22% of the projects implemented experienced at least one change and that the 2 most frequent causes of change were "Changed conditions" ("unbudgeted and unanticipated changes to baseline assumptions as they pertain to site conditions and weather) and "Programming Evolution" (change in/to the underlying basis of design as captured and identified in the baseline).This implies that more needs to done to identify risks that might derail the project and proactively plan responses to mitigate those risks.The fact that " "Changed Conditions" seem to be a strong driver to change as shown by this research is understandable as in today's complex IT projects and for a successful implementation many prerequisites and conditions need to be met and when they are not, change to projects become inevitable.In this research the author was also able to show that the longer the duration between the creation of the SOW and the project start (kickoff meeting), the more likely that changes will occur in the project which implies that the longer the delay in project start the more there is a need to reevaluate some of the assumptions made during the planning phase.