[AISWorld] CFP: AMCIS 2012 IT Project Management Track

[Alanah Mitchell]

Call for Papers: 18th Americas Conference on Information Systems
(AMCIS), August 9 - 12, 2012, Seattle, Washington

IT Project Management Track (and associated mini-tracks)

18th Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS), August 9 -
12, 2012, Seattle, Washington

Track Information:
Unfortunately, information technology (IT) projects have become
notorious for high failure rates or having significant cost or budget
overruns. Both research and anecdotal evidence suggests that many IT
projects struggle to meet functionality and quality targets. Research
has identified multiple reasons for these challenges in IT projects,
such as: project escalation, poor risk management, failure to manage
user expectations, poor software development or project management
processes, or inability to learn from past mistakes and successes. As
a research community, there is still much to be learned and discussed
about improving success rates for IT projects.

IT Project Management Mini-tracks:

Minitrack 1: IT Project Management in Small Shops: Challenges and Solutions
Minitrack Chairs: Jeffry Babb, Jacob Norbjerg
Description: More than 80% of US software developing companies have
less than 10 employees. Similar numbers apply to other countries and
regions. Yet, we know surprisingly little about the software project
practices and challenges of these companies. The purpose of this
mini-track is to focus on the challenges and practices of small shop
IT project management.

Minitrack 2: The Interaction of Collaborative Information Technologies
and Dynamic Events in Project Management
Minitrack Chairs: Tayfun Keskin, Nazim Taskin
Description: The medium of collaboration is changing as groups rely on
information technologies to share information. Collaborative
information technologies (CITs) have provided an economical
alternative to travel for project members who provide necessary
skills. Early adopter organizations quickly took advantage of
functions of several information processing technologies, from web
conferences to virtual workspaces. Those virtual tools have not
replaced conventional teamwork, but they have had an impact on the
information sharing processes. The mini track solicits research
studies that seek to explore the business role of collaborative
information technologies especially in dynamic project environments.

Minitrack 3: Agile Project Management
Minitrack Chairs: Meghann Drury, Orla McHugh
Description: Agile methodologies were developed in response to
frustrations with traditional software development methodologies and
the management of software development projects. As organizations
increasingly continue to adopt agile methodologies, a number of
challenges have emerged in relation to agile project management (APM).
For example, agile software development (ASD) teams work largely on
their own and manage their own workload, which is a cultural shift for
managers, developers, and customers alike. Managers must relinquish
control to the team and avoid the imposition of too many formal
controls or too much structure, which may result in unintended
consequences. This dramatic change provides challenges for advocates
of agile methodologies who can find it difficult to obtain management
support for implementing agile methodologies. Empirical research in
agile methodologies is continuously growing. Yet, little research
exists on the management of ASD teams as agile methodologies imply
there is no need for a project manager. However, ASD teams require
leadership and a different approach to project management. Therefore,
we are seeking high quality research papers that investigate various
aspects of agile project management.

Minitrack 4: General Topics in IT Project Management
Minitrack Chairs: Stacie Petter, Hazel Taylor
Description: Project-based work structures have become the norm within
a number of industries, including the Information Technology (IT)
sector, and these structures present new challenges for managers and
researchers. For project managers in the wider arena, particularly in
construction and engineering, such project-based work structures still
operate within a clear overall management structure, with project
teams that are likely to remain the same from project to project,
working on projects that are relatively well-defined and with a high
degree of repeatability. In contrast, the IT sector is characterized
by rapidly changing technology and contexts of application. Project
managers typically face new, diverse, and ill-defined requirements for
each project, and must manage their projects in rapidly changing
conditions and under high time pressure. In addition, IT project
managers usually work within a poorly defined management structure.
Therefore, they must gain the support and commitment, without direct
position power, of a loosely aggregated set of team members who often
change from project to project, and even from stage to stage, within a
project. Increasingly in IT projects, team members are also
geographically distributed, presenting yet another set of challenges
for their project managers. As a result, while the project management
profession has seen considerable performance improvements in the last
fifty years, IT projects have been reported as having a track record
of poor performance. This has occurred even though proven best
practices from the wider sector have been applied in the IT arena.

Minitrack 5: Management of IT Outsourcing Projects in a Global Economy
Minitrack Chairs: Jahyun Goo, Matthew Swinarski
Description: While academics and practitioners alike suggest that
relationship management is a crucial factor in the overall success or
failure of an IT outsourcing project, managing outsourcing
relationship becomes a daunting task as the traditional IT outsourcing
projects (application development, database development, etc.) has
developed into a highly specialized marketplace of IT-enabled service
projects such as business process outsourcing (BPO), knowledge process
outsourcing (KPO), etc. over the last decade. The phenomenon of
significant, sustained trend of IT project globalization, has led to
the fact that researchers in many disciplines are reframing and
refocusing their efforts around project management that explore
whether findings in one context hold true in another. Along this line,
a recent report by Gartner points out that many firms have failed to
build a skills base to meet the challenge of managing their new
outsourcing environment and are therefore at risk of a low return on
service value. Therefore, this mini‐track invites research articles
that focus on social, managerial and knowledge-related topics in IS
outsourcing/offshoring project management, which we believe lead to a
pathway to the success of IT project. With papers that are both
conceptual and empirically based, we seek to contribute to theory
building by both reapplying existing frameworks and developing new
constructs that help explaining the project t management view of IT
outsourcing relationship in general, and offshoring arrangements in
particular.

Minitrack 6: Adoption, Diffusion and Success of IT Project Management
Methodologies
Minitrack Chairs: Kunal Mohan, Nils Urbach, Anol Bhattacherjee
Description: The objective of this min-track is to foster research on
ITPM methodologies by providing deeper insights into factors that
affect their successful design, adoption, diffusion, and application.
Researchers and practitioners interested in submitting papers for this
mini-track are encouraged to explore ITPM methodologies, and related
methods and tools – for example from a design or behavioral
perspective. Papers may consider different units of analysis:
individual, group, or organizational level.

Minitrack 7: Project Management Education
Minitrack Chairs: Michael Cuellar
Description: Learning to be a project manager in the information
systems world is often an informal process. Many times IS
professionals have become project managers on the basis of broad
project experience and technical expertise rather than systematic
training. The informal nature of project management training resulted
in project managers not possessing all the skills they should have to
be successful. Academia has attempted to address this gap by the
development of project management courses. While this has been a
welcome addition to the project of the information systems student, a
number of questions arise regarding this effort. The purpose of this
mini-track then is to provide a forum to exchange ideas and experience
in these areas. Participants in this mini-track should receive
practical advice on how to address these areas and take away ideas on
how to improve their courses and curricula.

Submission Guidelines and Important Dates:
Submissions must represent original work that has not been published
in a journal or conference proceedings. At least one author for each
accepted paper must register for the conference. Submissions will be
peer-reviewed using a double-blind system. Submission format and
general conference information may be found here:
http://amcis2012.aisnet.org/

January 3, 2012:                     AMCIS 2012 submission system available
March 1, 2012:                      Submissions due
April 6, 2012:                          Acceptance notification
April 25, 2012:                        Camera-ready copies of accepted
manuscripts due

Please contact the mini-track chairs or the track chairs with any
questions you may have.