Too Tight - Too Loose: Controlling Lessons from a Failed IS Development Project

Information Systems Development outsourcing (ISD-outsourcing) projects are notorious for not providing agreed deliverables within the stipulated time and budget. More alarmingly, it is estimated that 19% of ISD-outsourcing projects fail outright (Hastie and Wojewod 2015). This study investigates an ISD-outsourcing failure case which was attributed to issues in the requirements engineering process. Adopting a ‘control theory’ perspective and leveraging case study approach, we examine how the weaknesses in control portfolio contributed to project failure. We attribute the failure not to the absence of control portfolios, rather (i) employing particular control mechanisms incorrectly depending on the phase of requirements engineering process, (ii) dominance of a particular control mechanism, and (iii) insufficiency of particular control mechanisms.