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Top1. Introduction
Organizations need to ensure that their investments in Information Technology (IT) and Information Systems (IS) are successful, regardless of whether the economy is booming or disarming. IS plays a critical role in organizations since IT/IS projects are enablers of organizational transformation and business growth (Iriarte & Bayona, 2020). Furthermore, a successful IS leads a company to achieve better business results. However, IS projects failure affects business profit either directly or indirectly (Delone & McLean, 2003; Petter, DeLone, & McLean, 2008).
The evaluation of the effectiveness and success of IS is an important aspect of the IS field in both research and practice (Keen, 1980). Information system success concerns the effective creation, distribution, and uses of information via technology. However, defining IS success can be challenging because success is a multidimensional concept that can be assessed at different levels (e.g., technical, individual, group, organizational) and using several criteria (e.g., economic, financial, behavioral, perceptual) (DeLone & McLean, 1992).
Evaluating IS success has been a focus of IS research for the past four decades, which can be traced to the seminal work of Alter and Ginzberg (1978) and Barkin and Dickson (1977), who evaluated success in terms of system usage. However, system usage is just one measure of success, and in specific deployment contexts such as a mandated usage context, system usage might not be the appropriate measure to evaluate success. Since then, the measurement of IS success or effectiveness has been widely investigated throughout the IS research community. Theorists are grappling with the question of which constructs best measure IS success for many years (Rai, Lang, & Welker, 2002).
DeLone and McLean (1992) comprehensively reviewed the different IS success measures and proposed a six-factor IS success model as taxonomy and framework for measuring the complex-dependent variables in IS research. This model proved to be of great usefulness to explain the success theoretically, but in the literature, there is no much research translating it into actionable knowledge, i.e., describing how to use in practice the learnings from the theoretical model.
On the other hand, Varajão (2016), with a practical focus, proposed Success Management as a new project management knowledge area. This knowledge area was further organized through a new process (Varajão, 2018b). This process comprises nine activities: Plan project success management; Plan phase success management; Identify success factors and define performance and result indicators; Perform success evaluation; Validate and report success; Perform preventive and corrective actions; Review success management; Validate and report phase success; and, Validate and report project success. Varajão (2016, 2018b) identifies the main principles and processes of Success Management, but do not focus IS projects in particular; consequently, for instance, do not describe in detail the criteria that may be used to assess IS success.
In our view, there is an opportunity to improve IS success management theory and practice by integrating the IS Success Model with the Success Management Process. In this position paper, we present an overview of this and examples of IS success measures.
The paper is organized as follows. The following section summarizes the DeLone and McLean (1992, 2003, 2016) IS Success Model. Varajão’s (2018b) Success Management Process is described next. Then, an integrated model is presented and briefly discussed. Finally, we conclude with implications from this proposal for practice and research, and some highlights for further research.