اثرات کنترل تغییر و بررسی مدیریت بر عملکرد پروژه و انعطاف پذیری نرم افزار

Software flexibility and project efficiency are deemed to be desirable but conflicting goals during software development. We considered the link between project performance, software flexibility, and management interventions. Specially, we examined software flexibility as a mediator between two recommended management control mechanisms (management review and change control) and project performance. The model was empirically evaluated using data collected from 212 project managers in the Project Management Institute. Our results confirmed that the level of control activities during the system development process was a significant facilitator of software flexibility, which, in turn, enhanced project success. A mediator role of software flexibility implied that higher levels of management controls could achieve higher levels of software flexibility and that this was beneficial not only to the maintainability of complex applications but also to project performance.

Software projects continue to be plagued by budget overruns and a failure to produce software that meets expectations. Failure to meet cost budgets may adversely impact future resource allocation and failure to meet time considerations may hamper the firm's competitive posture. Various forms of control have been proposed as solutions. The CMM defines layers of control to help ensure higher quality products and more efficient procedures. Studies have found that such controls improve the development process. In particular, change control to limit scope creep and management review to perform intermediate quality checks on the system have been shown to be effective in improving project performance [15] and [27]. One indicator of quality software is software flexibility [8]; it allows a product to be modified rapidly and cost-effectively for new needs. However, achieving a high level of software flexibility has often been slow, inflexible, and time-consuming, even with the aid of sophisticated development tools and methodologies [13]. Thus, it seems to oppose the goal of efficient production. Thus, it seemed necessary to examine managerial controls to determine if they can help in implementing higher levels of software flexibility while still managing to meet budgetary restrictions. We therefore attempted to develop a framework for investigating the effects of two prominent control methods on the conflicting goals of software flexibility and project efficiency and testing the model empirically.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first empirical study that attempted to link management interventions to software flexibility in software project management. The primary resultwas that software flexibility had a positive impact on final project outcomes and that controls were effective in achieving software flexibility. Within appropriate management control activities,high investmentin software flexibility practices during system development process may not only provide lower maintenance costs for complex applications, but also help meeting project objectives. Our results revealed that IS manage- ment should not only focus on methods to design software to be more flexible but also focus on management control practices to avoid potential problems of scope and rework and thus help project completion within the budget and schedule. Investment in software quality practices in the early stages of a software development process will contribute to project perfor- mance. The resources devoted to quality improvement are not costs and should be considered as assets. Rather than conceive factors that directly affect project performance, managers could consider focusing on those factors that contribute to software flexibility. We drew on control theory to examine empirically why management review affected software flexibility. Our assertions and results confirmed prior IS studies that showed the importance of managerial control. The implication for practitioners is clear: A software process that leads to software flexibility should be developed and tailored to projects this should include planning, assessment, and correction in a review framework. In addition, managers should note the diverse, often conflicting, individual goals and interests of IS team members. These must be managed to minimize shortcut behavior that makes subsequent software change more difficult.