Consensual uncertainty study of a project to uncover a pattern

Abstract

DELONIX is one of the leading software services and solution providers in India. They provide application maintenance, development and system integration services for Fortune 100 customers globally, based on the Global Delivery Model of offshore-ed development. DELONIX operates a predominantly business unit based organization structure, with every business unit catering to specific industry verticals. The horizontal organization spans across multiple industry verticals and specializes in technology. This report is an analysis of a project executed by DELONIX and the interesting dimensions that emerge. The report comprises of two distinct sections. The first section presents a case study of a project - Unified Point of Sale (UPOS) that was executed by the Retail Business Unit. This project was chosen as it presented some very unique dimensions - it was in a niche domain, where DELONIX was initially making its tottering footsteps. The technology employed in the project was also new. This was probably the largest Fixed Price Bid at the time by DELONIX. The project was also characterized by an extremely high rate of employee turnover. The project failed to meet its objectives of acceptable software quality with the specified schedule, within the timelines. Despite some very interesting opportunities presented in the project, the team continued to dwindle. The case study's most insightful learning was that the attrition was highest among employees who had been with the company for less than two years. The second section of this research attempts to uncover the pattern (if at all it exists) within this project and observe if that can be extended to other projects. As part of this process, dimensions emerging from the case have been studied and analyzed to build a model from ground up. The idea would be understand the influence of these dimensions, their inter-relationships and how they played out during the course of the project. Some key dimensions emerging from the case are;. Time, Work Hours (time difference) and hence Fatigue. Communication patterns (Inconsistency, Lack of)..Project constraints. New and Niche Domain. New technology. Potential payoff for the team (team experience, competence)..Project org structure. Project typology (FP, T and M).Vision: The key contribution of this thesis would be the ability to model projects along some of the identified dimensions and draw conclusions from it. A combination of depth interviews, research on existing bodies of knowledge were the foundations on which this model would be built. Further research could formulate a questionnaire that could be used as a tool to administer surveys that would aid in classifying projects along identified dimensions.