Information Systems: Achieving Success by Avoiding Failure

by Joyce Fortune, Geoff Peters

Despite people's best efforts information systems are particularlyprone to failure. Some systems never materialize, others appearlate and/or over budget and those that are implemented often failto deliver the promised levels of performance. The consequences ofthese failures affect people throughout the organization concernedand beyond, sometimes to the point where they even threaten acompany's future survival.  They also damage the companiesthat develop and supply such systems.  Worse still, the sametypes of problems occur again and again; even the most exhaustivemethods are not able to ensure success. This book aims to help all those people involved withinformation systems to break that repeating pattern offailure.  Using real life examples it introduces asophisticated approach based around the notion of system to come togrips with the causes of actual and potential failure.  Itpresents a model of a system capable of action without failure thatcan be used as a yardstick to judge existing and plannedinformation systems and suggest measures that need to be taken toachieve success.

236 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Josh N. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Compulsory reading for a course. Interesting, but I think quite naive on how real projects actually work. Too often would write off things as impossible to predict for no reason or assume certain behaviours that I have never actually seen in real life on those situations. Simply put, good enough but way too academic.