SE 477: Software and Systems Project Management
Assignment 1,  Due: January 18, 2017

Assignment: Case Study on Project Failure

• Description – Students will read the material below. Write a four page case study of the Virtual Case File project and its failure.
  
• Motivation – looking at a project failure helps teach you what not to do and thus helps teach you what to do in managing a project.
  

1. Reading

• Read the Gartner Report, From the CIO Trenches: Why Some Projects Fail and Others Succeed by David McClure (Gartner document ID: G00151721).  [Note: a copy of this report has been loaded on Desire2Learn to save you the effort.]
• Read the FBI Virtual Case File project. [IEEE Spectrum, "Who Killed the Virtual Case File?", September 2005, (11 pages)]. <http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/sep05/1455> [Local Mirror - http://condor.depaul.edu/dmumaugh/readings/handouts/SE477/FBI-VCF.pdf].
  
• See also commentary by the New York Times: FBI Faces New Setback in Computer Overhaul: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/19/us/19fbi.html
• And also FBI’s Sentinel System Still Not In Total Shape to Surveil,  http://spectrum.ieee.org/riskfactor/computing/it/fbis-500-million-sentinel-case-management-system-still-has-major-operational-kinks-ig-reports
• The reading list has more things you may want to look at.
  

2. Files

• HW1 Template MS Word document template.

3. Assignment: Case study on an IT Project Failure

1. Read the Gartner Report, From the CIO Trenches: Why Some Projects Fail and Others Succeed by David McClure (Gartner document ID: G00151721), available on the DePaul Libraries Web site and on Desire2Learn > Documents.
2. Read the FBI Virtual Case file papers.
3. Write a three to four-page summary and analysis of the VCF project and its failure.
4. Provide a summary of lessons learned. Use the Gartner report as a guideline of how projects ought to be managed and a guide for potential points of failure. Also use the lecture notes for guidance on possible mistakes and problems.

Deliverables: The submission should have your name, date and assignment title  on the front page. Use headers and footers, and have your name and title on each page.

• Layout and format. The  layout and format for the assignment are defined in the HW1 Template MS Word document template. Use the template! The paper should be single spaced.
• Summary. The Summary must be a short summary of the important findings and conclusions. This summary should be at least two but not more than five paragraphs in length.
• Analysis.  In Analysis, address the following questions:
• Discuss the Virtual Case File project.
• I want a discussion of the major mistakes and problems causing the failure. Perform a post-mortem analysis on this project and the lessons learned.
• For lessons learned, provide the top six reasons for the project’s failure. Identify specific reasons or factors that contribute to the failure. Use the Gartner report and your class/lecture notes for ideas. [A paragraph each. Highlight them].
• References (optional). If you consult other references for the assignment, cite them here, using the APA style. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APA_style, specifically the Reference list section of the entry.