Developing a Framework for User Participation in Information System Development Projects

While project management has become one of the more popular organizational disciplines over the last few decades, ironically, project success statistics suggest that most projects still fail, and thus do not accomplish their business objectives. This therefore presents a unique opportunity to study this phenomenon to improve success rates in this discipline. As projects are complex, multi-dimensional phenomena, it can be examined from various perspectives. In this study, the phenomenon of IT project success is examined from the user perspective by developing a theoretical framework that investigates the role of user participation and involvement in determining ISD project success. Keywords Project management, Information System Development (ISD), user participation, project success, participative decision making, theoretical framework