Linking Project Outcomes to Customer Needs

This chapter presents a model that helps Information systems (IS) and project managers assess and ultimately narrow the gaps between customer needs and project outcomes. In many IS organizations, the primary measure of project success lies in meeting some combination of project specifications, a project deadline, and a project budget. To ensure success, IS and project managers should link project planning to control actions that relate customer goals to end results. IS and project managers must envision and apply a model that translates customer requirements into a specific sequence of management actions. The project team understands the importance of remote sales and marketing access to the data base as a desired feature in the order management system. The order management system, the project team is unable to execute what is an adequate plan because it lacks expertise in database design or the requisite hardware cannot be supplied in a timely manner by the customer or a vendor.