The core requirements of the project center on a series of healthcare professionals who taken together are the stakeholders of a complex payroll processing system (Paull, 2013). The requirements from a project management standpoint is to concentrate on the bargaining power of suppliers as system integration partners and create a unified project plan that can successfully meet multiple stakeholder needs. Making this more difficult than other implementations is the bargaining power of buyers, who also are requiring that IBM construct a system they can quickly use to solve complex supply chain, procurement and strategic sourcing challenges as can be inferred from the article (Paull, 2013). IBM has also allowed for a greater level of threat from new market entrants as well, through the ineffective management of stakeholder requirements. What's obvious from the article cited is that there is now significant it change management plan in process to ensure a smooth transition from previous systems. The highest performing it implementations have this attribute, including a series of processes for capturing and translating stakeholder requirements into specific product and screen feature definitions (Fickenscher, Bakerman, 2011). As a result of this lack of focus on these factors, the project will most likely have to be completely re-done. This project illustrates how critical it is for a global service provider to be cognizant of the many stakeholder requirements there are and also look at how best they can orchestrate their service partners as well. If IBM had taken an iterative approach to using the five forces model they would have discovered how disconnected the processes were that they were attempting to unify, and worked to fill the voids in coverage. All of this would have also led to a much higher levels of stakeholder participation, and greater fidelity to the specific goals of the project. Instead there is widespread confusion and a lack of focus on the stakeholder requirements. As has been mentioned before, this system will most likely need to be completely replaced and the entire process started over again. Using the five forces model for determining how the Queensland Health could be made more effective would have led to a more effective strategy, and a system unified by a common framework. The greatest challenge of any it project is ensuring a high level of change management that takes into account stakeholder requirements (Ball, 2000). If IBM had taken a more systematic approach this project they would have succeeded.

Conclusion

In both articles Contract Signed Before Payroll System Proven to Work (Paull, 2013) and Dell Sparks Bidding War as New...

Both examples also show how critical it is to take into account the requirements for compliance from the Australian government, local businesses and the global business community. The IBM example shows how the lack of a framework leads to chaos and the Dell one shows how well-orchestrated a privatization effort can be when one is in place. Both also reflect the need for managing expectations across governments, local and global business communities through the use of information.