IT Education's Failure to Deliver Successful Information Systems: Now is the Time to Address the IT-User Gap

Introduction Information technology has become increasingly important to organizational health and even survival over the years; yet the success rate for information technology (IT) development projects is still frightfully low and runaway projects are all too common. According to a study of over 8,000 projects by the Standish Group (Standish Group, 1995): * 16.2% were successful (on time, on budget, full functionality) * 52.7% were challenged (over budget, time and fewer features) * 31.1% were impaired (project was canceled) Moreover, these rates are not significantly different than when systems were built in the 70's and 80's (see Mann, 1996 for a review of failure literature). IT Education and Unsuccessful Information Systems Information technology departments were created in business schools because system failures were attributed to problems with the interaction between traditional computer scientists and stakeholders of the system to be built. Computer scientists were very capable at building systems but had difficulties creating systems that met end-users' needs. This was the beginning of the IT/User gap--a phrase that encapsulates all dysfunctional aspects of the relationship between end-users and the personnel in the IT department. In these early days, the IT/User gap was thought to stem from the lack of business knowledge on the part of computer scientists. Information technology curricula were, therefore, designed to address this issue by giving students both exposure to various business disciplines and a strong grounding in technical skills and techniques. Moreover, courses such as Systems Analysis and Systems Design emphasized the importance of accurately capturing user requirements and building systems that are aligned with those requirements. The systems developed in programming classes solved real life business problems and in telecommunications courses emphasized how networks support business operations. Later, business schools also realized that the IT/User gap might also stem from users not having enough knowledge about IT. At that time, courses on IT fundamentals were introduced into core business curricula at both the undergraduate and graduate level. So, the IT-User gap has been attacked from the IT side as well as the User side, but still development projects fail to achieve a successful outcome. What should be done next? A possible answer may be found by examining the nature of the IT-Gap, current organizational practice and then reflecting on ways IT pedagogy could be reworked to address the many facets of this chasm between the IT department and end-users. Research on the IT-User Gap The dynamics between IT and end users in development projects has been a subject of numerous research papers throughout the 70's and 80's, including papers on user involvement, user acceptance/ diffusion and user satisfaction. A poor IT-User relationship has often been cited as a cause of failure in development projects but few studies have examined the dynamics of this relationship. One exception is Seligman (2000) who proposes an adopter-centered process model of IT adoption based on Karl Weick's concept of sensemaking. There is much less literature on the gap between end users in general and the IT department as a whole. Some researchers have shown that IT personnel have different personality traits than the general population, which might partially explain why there is a gap (ex: Wynekoop & Walz,1998). Other researchers have focused on identifying important skills necessary in the IT shop (Martinsons & Chong, 1998), including those necessary for working with end users (Shore, 1998). Many researchers have examined what makes and information center successful as a service arm of the IT department (Dhillon, & Lee, 2000) but these studies focus more on the tasks performed (Guimaraes, Gupta & Rainer, 1999; Essex, Magal & Masteller, 1998) than whether there is an effective IT-User relationship. …