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Stakeholders Management for Effective Software Engineering Projects in Nigeria
ABSTRACT
Software engineering projects (SEP) nowadays acknowledge the importance of incorporating many people, groups, and organizations with interest or requirements during project development phases for the realization of successful project. These groups who are collectively referred to as stakeholders are not limited to those who use it, rather those who build, test, operate, maintain, evaluate, and pay for it. One of the major concerns in SEP is the recognition and management of project stakeholders since the stakeholders are a major source of uncertainty in project. Stakeholders‘ management has long been recognized as increasing the propensity for successful delivery of projects, but the complete benefits of stakeholder management have yet to be exploited. Earlier research efforts indicated lack of comprehensive stakeholder management process because the existing frameworks in SEP either focused on a particular stage or failed to incorporate vital factors such as active listening, networking, stakeholder communication and feedback, social and professional relationship among stakeholders, rapport tradeoffs and conflict resolution. This research identified stakeholder management strategies and the criteria for judging effective SEP and determined how these contribute to the effectiveness of SEP. The research used survey method during data collection and analyzed the data using regression analysis to describe the linear relationship between each of stakeholder management strategies and effective SEP and multiple regression to predict the joint effects of stakeholder management strategies on effective SEP. The two main project constraints (time and cost) are considered to determine the project overall performance using discriminant analysis. It was possible to discriminate the 40 variables based on the given characteristics of project measured as failure, challenged, and success and to ascertain the predefined group a project belongs. The result showed that a project might be tagged successful while there are functionalities yet to be implemented. Also each of the identified strategies contributes significantly to effective SEP. This implies that the respondents strongly advocate the use of stakeholder management strategies in conjunction with project success measures to achieve project success. It was recommended that using the identified stakeholder management strategies and the criteria for measuring effectiveness, SEP will produce effective software product in the future.
Keywords: Stakeholders management, software engineering projects, stakeholders‘ management strategies, project performance, stakeholders‘ satisfaction, time performance, cost performance
Table of Contents
Certification ii
Dedication iii
Acknowledgement vi
Table of Contents vi
List of Tables x
List of Figures/Charts xiii
Abstract xv
CHAPTER ONE: Introduction 1
1.1 Background Information 1
1.2 Problem Statement 8
1.3 Objectives of the Study 9
1.4 Hypotheses 10
1.5 Justification of Study 11
1.6 Scope of Study 13 CHAPTER TWO: Literature Review 16
2.1 The Conceptual framework of Stakeholders Management 16
2.2 Theoretical Framework of the study 21
2.2.1 Normative Theory 22
2.2.2 Descriptive Theory 25
2.2.3 Instrumental Theory 26
2.3 Stakeholders Management 27
2.3.1 Identification of Stakeholders 31
2.3.2 Prioritization of Stakeholders 35
2.4 Stakeholders Engagement 44
2.5 Stakeholders Engagement Strategies 46
2.6 Stakeholders Management Approaches 49
2.7 Stakeholders Management Factors 55
2.8 Project Critical Success Factors 71
2.9 Project Management Success Indicators 78
2.10 Software Engineering Projects 83
2.10.1 Historical Background of Software Engineering 85
2.10.2 Theoretical perspectives 87
2.10.3 Stakeholders in Software Engineering Projects 90
2.10.4 Characteristics of Software Engineering Projects 92
2.10.5 Traditional Phases of SEP 94
2.10.6 Software engineering models 100
2.11 Gaps in Literature 112
CHAPTER THREE: Research Methodology 115
3.1 Research Design 115
3.2 Population of the Study 116
3.3 Sample and Sampling Procedures 117
3.4 Data Collection Instrument 119
3.4.1 Questionnaire 119
3.4.2 Primary and Secondary Data 121
3.5 Methods of Data Analysis 121
3.6 Validity of the Instruments 125
3.7 Pilot Test 126
3.8 Reliability of the Instruments 126
CHAPTER FOUR: Results and Discussions 128
4.1 Results 128
4.1.1 Demographic Analysis 128
4.2 Analysis of Research Questions 132
4.2.1 Analysis of Effects of Stakeholders‘ Management factors on SEP
Performance 133
4.2.2 Effect of Stakeholders‘ Management factors on SEP Time
Performance 133
4.2.3 Effect of Stakeholders‘ Management factors on SEP Cost Performance
142
4.2.4 Effect of Stakeholders‘ Management factors on SEP Stakeholders‘
satisfaction 150
4.2.5 Stakeholders‘ management strategies for effective SEP 157
4.2.5.1 Relationship between Conflict Resolution Dexterity and effective
SEP 158
4.2.5.2 Relationship between Communication and Feedback among Stakeholders and Effectiveness of SEP 161
4.2.5.3 Relationship between Active Listening and effective SEP 165
4.2.5.4 Relationship between Networking and effective SEP 168
4.2.5.5 Relationship between Social & Professional Relationship and
Effectiveness of SEP in Nigeria 172
4.2.5.6 Relationship between Rapport Tradeoffs and Effectiveness of
SEP in Nigeria 176
4.2.5.7 Joint Analysis for the Determinants of effective SEP 179
4.3 Summary of the Findings 186
4.4 Discussions 187
CHAPTER FIVE: Conclusions and Recommendations 191
5.1 Conclusion 191
5.2 Recommendations 193
5.3 Contribution to Knowledge 196
References 200
Appendices 210
Appendix A: Stakeholders Management Questionnaire 211
Appendix B: Selected Software Engineering Projects 215
Appendix C: Stakeholders Management Data 217
Appendix D: Tests of Equalityof Group Means 220
Appendix E: Nature of the Organization versus Position 221
Appendix F: Stakeholder Management Variables 222
CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background Information
Software engineering projects (SEP) comprise series of activities or tasks carried out by different people or groups who might have diverse interest or involvement in the project (Tarawneh, 2011). The projects are usually unique due to the stages involved and many parties interacting with one another. They are also limited by time and other resources like manpower, material and money, which are needed to deliver the projects (Bourne & Walker, 2006; Johansen, Eik-Andresen, & Ekambaram, 2014). Although, the stages of SEP are complex, the projects involve collaboration and negotiations among many people such as customers, end-users, analysts, designers, developers, suppliers, government, and the society (Babar, Ghazali, Jawawi, & Elsafi, 2013; Boonstra, 2010). The management of these people is vital to the project success because they are affected directly or indirectly in the project and are referred collectively as project stakeholders (Davis, 2014).
The focus of project management has then shifted from effective planning and management of the project activities to the management of complex interaction and interrelationships existing among the parties involved in the project to determine its overall successful completion (Takim, 2009). Therefore, stakeholders management is perceived as a significant strategy for achieving success in SEP. Moreover, project success has been associated with effective stakeholders management (Aaltonen & Kujala., 2016; Bourne & Walker, 2006; Davis, 2014;
Johansen et al, 2014). Previous researches (Al-Ahmad, Al-Fagih, Khanfar, Alsamara, Abuleil & Abu-Salem, 2009; Magness, 2008) have also attributed project failures to either lack of or inadequate stakeholders management during the project development.
Many studies have been carried out on stakeholders management in other industries like in construction (Bourne & Walker, 2006), building (Johansen et al, 2014), and software (Kaur & Sengupta, 2013); unfortunately stakeholders management in SEP have not been given attention especially in Nigeria. Fageha and Aibinu (2013) observed that most project managers have no idea of stakeholders management and that the project stakeholders are not adequately engaged. Butt, Naaranoja, and Savolainen (2016) noticed that adequate communication with stakeholders is neglected by most project managers. Although proper management of SEP is crucial for organizations nowadays, the failure rate of software projects is still alarming. SEP in Nigeria have not been proper assessed, therefore the failure rate in Nigeria might be higher than what Standish Chaos Report (2015) discovered. Most completed projects in Nigeria are challenged with many restarts while others were either abandoned or failed. A typical example is the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) Permanent Voters Card (PVC) reader that attracted hot debate among Nigerians during 2015 general election. This smart card reader is a technological device intended to authenticate and verify INEC issued PVCs on Election Day. The reader was developed using cryptographic technology that has ultra-low power consumption with a single core frequency of 1.2GHz on Android 4.2.2 Operating System (Beetseh & Akpoo, 2015). The INEC card reader uses information embedded in a chip on the INEC PVC to verify the genuineness of the PVC and match the biometric information obtained from the intended voter to the one on the PVC. The smart card reader is also expected to keep a log of voters accredited at the polling station and forward it thereafter to centralized database over the Global System for Mobile (GSM) network. The purpose of INEC deploying this technological device for 2015 election was to prevent multiple voting, authenticate and verify voters, and analyze statistically the demographic data for planning and research among others (INEC, 2015). Lack of stakeholders management hinders the PVC reader from attaining its impressive objectives rather it generated contentious argument among stakeholders.
Also, the National Universities Commission Data Base (NUCDB) was designed as a central data repository, with access to information on students, university staff, facilities, programmes, research and all other relevant activities of Nigerian universities. This is not the only failed software project in NUC, others are NUNet, NUSMAP,and NUMIS. The NUC database project was intended to assist
university graduates up to 25 years back seeking to check their entire academic records online (Ifinedo & Uwadia, 2005). Unfortunately the projects are yet to realize the objectives due to lack of stakeholders management.
Another controversial software project in public sector in Nigeria is the National Identity Management Agency (NIMC) which was proposed in 1963 and has gulped over 121 billion naira with nothing to show for it. The project is yet to achieve its main objective which was meant to authenticate the true identity of every Nigerian; rather it has been surrounded with many contentions (Eberendu, 2015).
For projects to succeed, senior management and other project stakeholders need to be involved from the planning stage throughout development and deployment stages. The stakeholders need to define their expectations, prioritize and clarify their requirements, and participate in all activities of the project in order to support the project.
Standish Group (2015) Chaos Report recommended that focusing on the user‘s requirements is one of the key factors in the overall project success. What Standish
Group calls users are parts of the environment that must be managed to increase revenues, profits and ultimately return on investment in organization management (Nangoli, Namiyingo, Kabagambe, Namono, Jaaza, & Ngoma, 2016). According to Hughes and Cotterell (2011), the main established factor that differentiates one project from another is the people involved or those who have interest in the project that determine the course of the project. SEP teams have been basing their argument on the need to meet users‘ requirements despite the fact that it is not only the user who is interested in the project meeting its objectives (Argandona, 2011). User may be a generalized term used for those who have stakes in software project realizing its objectives. These are individuals, organizations, groups or societies the developed system will affect positively or negatively, and these according to Beringer, Jonas, and Knock, (2013) include those who build, test, modify, maintain, pay, use, or operate the software system. For each of these to carry out their work effectively, the developed software should meet their requirements, thus they are interested in the outcome, activity, and decision of the project. These people are therefore referred collectively as stakeholders. Babar et al (2013) said that projects are about managing relationships to create changes and deliver products, services or results both internal and outside the work. In other words, SEP have broad spectrum of different people that make up the stakeholders irrespective of their level of importance. Hughes and Cotterell (2011) concluded that software project management is strongly stakeholder-driven. Heravi, Coffey and Trigunarsyah, (2015) said that listening to stakeholders‘ concerns and getting feedbacks from them improves project design and outcome, as well as identify and control risks. In order to facilitate the development of the project the expectations and requirements of all stakeholders must be identified and properly managed
(Kazadi, Lievens, Mahr, 2016).
The idea of stakeholders dated as far as 1960s in the pioneering work of Stanford Research Institute (SRI). For stakeholders to support the developed objectives, SRI argued that management should understand the concerns of employees, customers, suppliers, lenders, and society (Harris, 2010). SRI also saw the support of all stakeholders as a catalyst for success. Stakeholders management as a branch of Strategic Management was popularized by Freeman (1984) which became the most important input to stakeholders concept when he proposed that managing stakeholders relationship effectively prolongs the lifespan of any organization. He based his argument on the work of Mason and Mitroff (1982) and Emshoff (1978) as building a framework that was sensitive to project managers‘ concerns. Since then academic interest has grown enormously on the topic. Stakeholders management as Boonstra (2010) elucidated means identification, analysis, and engagement of project stakeholders to take appropriate actions that supports the project. Its main purpose is to let the project organizations know those who should contribute to the project, where barriers might be, and the actions that need to be taken before detailed project planning. Therefore, Aragones-Beltran, Gracia-Melon and Montesinos-Valera (2017) viewed identifying and managing stakeholders
effectively as vital for all projects to succeed.
According to the Project Management Institute (PMI) (2013), project stakeholders are defined as individual, group, or organization who are actively involved in a project or whose interest may be positively or negatively affected by the performance or completion of the project and who may exert influence over the project, its deliverables, and the project team. They may be actively involved in the project or have interests that might positively or negatively affect the performance of the project. Stakeholders management is the process of managing the expectations or the requirements of these groups, individual, organizations, teams who have stakes in a project or will be affected by its outcome, decision or activity. Assudani and Kloppenborg (2010) pointed out that stakeholders management is critical to the success of every project and a big difference can be made when the right people are involved in a project.
In order to understand the effect of the project, organizations map stakeholders identification with their interest and influence, and then formulate suitable strategies to maximize positive influence of stakeholders and minimize any negative influence. Bourne and Walker (2006) said that many project have failed due to the ignorance of the project organization on this issue, mainly because project stakeholders have the power and influence to discontinue the project. According to Yang, Shen, and Ho (2009), insufficient stakeholders management has created serious problems in projects, for instance: inadequate scope and requirements definition, insufficient resources assigned to the project, irregular communication, frequent alterations in project requirements and functionalities, which may cause delays and cost overruns. Doloi (2013) stated that complexity of different project stakeholders has made it impossible to avoid project cost overrun. Therefore, Beringer et al (2013) mentioned that to ensure a successful project, the project organizations must identify all groups or individuals who have stake in the project, determine their expectations and requirements, and manage their influence and relationships.
1.2. Problem Statement
Globally, most stakeholders of Software engineering projects (SEP), especially end-users of its outputs often perceive most projects as failed. No wonder, Standish Group (2015) reported that two (2) out of every three (3) software engineering projects undertaking by developers fail. In Nigeria, the high rate of software engineering projects‘ teams failing to deliver expected outcomes remains highly unreported; while the few that end up being delivered witness significant increases in planned cost and time schedules, yet with low level of end users satisfactions. The Standish Group (2015) identified ineffective stakeholders‘ participation especially end-users as a critical factor that seem lacking in most software engineering projects that failed. Perhaps, lack of effective stakeholders‘ management strategy (partnering organizations, project team members, sponsors, regulatory bodies, government, community of software engineers, and developers as well as end-users) in the process of designing, developing and implementing software engineering projects may be responsible for the high rate of failures of such projects. The need to have proper understanding of interaction of stakeholders‘ management variables may be a necessary requirement for formulating strategies that will ensure effective time, cost and quality management of software engineering projects for improved stakeholders‘ satisfaction. Adequate knowledge of the above, no doubt will provide useful guide to software engineering projects practitioners for development of strategies for effective management of stakeholders involved in such projects; thereby meeting their individual and collective needs and expectations. This forms the basis of this research.
1.3. Objectives of the Study
The aim of this study is to develop stakeholders‘ management strategies for effective software engineering projects to enhance performance of software project teams in Nigeria. To realize the above aim, the following specific objectives are set for achievement:
- To examine the extent to which stakeholders‘ management factors discriminate software engineering projects‘ in Nigeria into favorable and unfavorable time schedule groups.
- To investigate the extent to which stakeholders‘ management factors discriminate software engineering projects‘ in Nigeria into favorable and unfavorable cost groups.
- To appraise the extent to which stakeholders‘ management factors
discriminate software engineering projects‘ in Nigeria into favorable and unfavorable stakeholders satisfaction groups.
- To assess the usefulness of conflict resolution dexterity, communication and feedback, active listening, networking, rapport trade-offs social and professional relationships among stakeholders‘ in formulating stakeholders‘ management strategies for effective software engineering projects in Nigeria.
1.4. Hypotheses
The hypotheses were tested with a significant level of 0.05 to determine whether software engineering organizations manage stakeholders during software project development. The null hypotheses are:
H01: Respect for Stakeholders‘ diverse opinion, stakeholders‘ teaming and focus on stakeholders satisfaction are not stakeholders‘ management factors that have likelihood of significantly influencing software engineering projects‘ time schedule performance in Nigeria.
H02: Respect for Stakeholders‘ diverse opinion, stakeholders‘ teaming and focus on stakeholders satisfaction are not stakeholders‘ management factors that have likelihood of significantly discriminating software engineering projects‘ into planned cost overrun and within planned groups.
H03: Identification of sources of conflict and Quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of SEP team are not stakeholders‘ management factors that have likelihood of significantly discriminating end-users of software engineering projects‘ into satisfied and unsatisfied groups.
H04: Conflict resolution dexterity, communication and feedback, active listening, networking, rapport trade-offs, social and professional relationship among stakeholders‘ are not significantly useful for formulating stakeholders‘ management strategies for effective SEP in Nigeria.
1.5. Justification of Study
This work reveals the essence of stakeholders management in SEP which helps in successful completion of software projects. Stakeholders management applicability in SEP is of great interest nowadays as organizations embrace ever growing technology in official activities. The identification, participation, proper engagement of stakeholders in SEP enable organizations to have closer contact with its stakeholders and thereby recognizing the potential strengths and weaknesses associated with the intended project and be able to prevent crisis situations that can be caused due to non-implementation of certain functionalities or requirements.
Knowledge of stakeholders management will help the project managers to understand their key stakeholders‘ expectations and all those who impact or are impacted by the project outcomes, features, decisions, and functions. The project stakeholders may find the results of this study useful as they throw light on the importance of their involvement in software projects. Stakeholders are expected to participate in software development in order to contribute to the success of the project.
The findings of this study may influence policy making on the management of stakeholders by guaranteeing that the problems causing software projects failure are not replicated in the upcoming projects. The failure of project organization to recognize the need of establishing and implementing policies to protect the project stakeholders concerns is a worrisome trend to regulators and stakeholders.
Software engineering professionals and academics in general will view this topic as another field of study in software engineering project management. This work will also be helpful for other researchers as it will offer them another source of reference. Thus, researcher in software project management, stakeholders management, and information technology may use the results of this study to broaden their knowledge in this area.
1.6. Scope of Study
The scope of this study is limited to stakeholders‘ management in software engineering projects and its effects on projects‘ performance. Given the subjective nature of the concept of project quality, this study did not include it as one of the performance indices evaluated; rather attention was focused on time, cost and stakeholders satisfaction level. Also, the study focused on describing and explaining both stakeholders strategies and vital activities of stakeholders management in projects. There are three main phases in stakeholders management namely stakeholders identification, stakeholders analysis and stakeholders engagement. The concentration is based on public sectors that develop software for government and these sectors are tertiary institutions, government agencies, and government ministries. The target respondents that provided the information for this study is the software development team members such as the software engineers, project managers, and information communication technology (ICT) managers because they are in best position to judge the performance of a project.
The research expands on previous study by investigating how stakeholders management improves SEP. The research is limited to the study of stakeholders management for effective SEP. It is not targeted to examine the purpose of any project or to investigate the impacts of projects on individuals or groups. There might be other related issues that cannot be covered due to time frame and limited resources. The scope therefore concentrates on necessary activities that fulfill the main purpose of the study.
Stakeholders management of SEP remains limited and challenging not only in Nigeria especially in small projects where organizations have limited resources devoted for stakeholders relationship management. The research is limited to the public organization (government establishments), the key players in implementing the major SEP in Nigeria. Accessing public documents on executed projects was difficult, but the researcher was able to get as many data as possible for this work. The findings are restricted to SEP in Nigeria which may not have a comprehensive list. The researcher used the list of registered project organizations from National
Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) that enabled
stratification. Thereafter selection of respondents to participate in the research was non-probabilistic or non-random.
Time and other resources posed problems for this research such as the travelling cost (time and money), due to sparse locations of the respondents; therefore government ministries with headquarters in Abuja were used. Although majority of the literatures has been on construction, business, and organization management; the research was related to SEP in Nigeria.
Stakeholders Management for Effective Software Engineering Projects in Nigeria
