Drawing from extensive field research and descriptions of how CarMax and The Washington Post transformed, this article advocates shifting from managing IT projects to digital product management, thus enabling nimbler, digital -first enterprises that can adapt in the face of increasing environmental uncertainty. Such transformations are facilitated by adopting Agile and DevOps practices to create a radically different engagement model based on stable, cross -functional teams that are empowered to prioritize continuous innovation and business outcomes over traditional project objectives.1,2

Qualitative synthesis research is an approach that consolidates the output of different qualitative studies to create new subject knowledge. Such work can help reveal more powerful explanations than that seen in a single study, thereby generating increased levels of understanding of a given phenomenon and greater research finding generalizability. Based on a review of the literature and a survey of qualitative researchers, we found that the information systems (IS) domain lacks a clear understanding of qualitative synthesis methods and, as a result, has largely failed to take advantage of this powerful, high-potential methodological opportunity. To address this shortcoming, this paper is the first to provide a rigorous overview of the full suite of 35 qualitative synthesis methods, as well as guidelines that include a three-tiered selection framework. By using the guidelines and framework in tandem, IS researchers are able to select the qualitative synthesis method most appropriate for a given research study, particularly when the research objective involves knowledge integration/aggregation, interpretation/theory development, and/or informing IS practice.

The Washington Post (The Post) is one of the world's most respected news-media organizations. After joining The Post as CEO and publisher in 2014, Fred Ryan worked with owner Jeff Bezos and The Post's executive team to bring about an extraordinary digital transformation at the global news organization. Despite all its success, The Post faced several significant business challenges in 2021, including new competitors, a growing number of channels through which readers consumed news, and rapidly changing consumer behavior. In response, The Post developed a digital-product mindset, rebuilt its newsroom, redesigned core business processes, built a software-as-a-service (SaaS) technology platform that functioned as a very profitable "business within a business," and announced the creation of Next Generation—a new initiative to accelerate the acquisition of younger and more diverse audiences through new products, practices, and partnerships. Excerpt UVA-S-0368 Rev. Jan. 27, 2022 Digital Transformation at The Washington Post: Innovating for the Next Generation After joining The Washington Post (The Post) in 2014 as publisher and CEO, Fred Ryan worked with owner Jeff Bezos to bring about an extraordinary digital transformation at the global news organization. As a result of Ryan and Bezos's efforts, The Post was on track to finish 2021 as a profitable and growing company, as it had been for the past six years. The turnaround had been nothing short of miraculous, leading Fast Company to recognize The Post as one of the “World's Most Innovative Companies” … “for bringing Amazonian ambition to news.” Yet, despite all its success, The Post continued to face several significant business challenges, including new competitors, a growing number of channels through which readers consumed news, and rapidly changing consumer behavior. While The Post was transforming itself, the share of Americans using social media to access news had nearly doubled to 48%. Underscoring this trend, Gen Z individuals (those born after 1996) were far more likely than those in earlier generations to use social media and news aggregators instead of direct methods (e.g., ) to access news, hurting both subscriptions and ad revenues, and posing challenges to the future profitability of The Post. . . .

Failure to learn from past mistakes and successes has consistently been a major obstacle to improving IT project management. IT Project Management: Lessons Learned from Project Retrospectives 1999-2020 addresses this shortcoming by integrating, updating, and extending the research findings from four previous studies on IT project retrospectives. The result is a “meta-retrospective” of 264 IT projects analyzed as part of a program of action research conducted between 1999 and 2020. When viewed individually, each retrospective tells a unique story and provides a rich understanding of the project management practices taken within a specific context during a particular timeframe. When viewed as a whole, these 264 projects provide an incredible opportunity to understand project management practices at a more macro level and to generate findings that can be generalized across a wide spectrum of applications and organizations.

WillowTree began as a small digital products company in 2007. By 2020, it had more than 500 full-time team members operating out of offices in four locations, and it had launched hundreds of digital products, including mobile apps, websites, voice assistants, and TV experiences. But also in 2020, WillowTree was facing the most significant challenge in its 12 years of corporate existence—a global pandemic.By analyzing how WillowTree blends project and product management, students will gain insights into how a digital products services company integrates a product mindset within contract-based projects, and get the opportunity to brainstorm how WillowTree can further adapt to provide a unique value proposition during the pandemic and beyond. Excerpt UVA-S-0338 Oct. 2, 2020 WillowTree: Project Driven with a Product Mindset Introduction WillowTree began as a small digital products start-up company based in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2007. By 2020, WillowTree's more than 500 full-time team members had launched hundreds of digital products, including mobile apps, websites, voice assistants, and TV experiences. As WillowTree's website stated: We are driven by a simple goal: amaze our clients by delivering high quality digital products that solve their business needs, and ensuring our projects run smoothly, strategically and predictably. We not only create great products, we help our clients answer the strategic questions around what to build, and in what order. . . .

CarMax, based in Richmond, Virginia, is the largest retailer of used cars in the United States. Over the past several years leading up to 2019, CarMax has undergone a major digital transformation, integrating agile, lean, and user experience (UX) design best practices to become a customer-centric, product-driven organization.In this case, CarMax is facing new competitors (e.g., digital native players Carvana and CarsDirect), changing consumer shopping behavior, and technological advancements in electric cars, autonomous vehicles, and ride-sharing platforms. In order to maintain its dominant position in the used-car marketplace, CarMax must continue to evolve from a traditional brick-and-mortar model marked by legacy corporate practices (such as annual roadmaps and budget cycles) to a product-focused, omnichannel experience that delivers significant value to its customers. Excerpt UVA-S-0317 Aug. 26, 2019 CarMax: Driving What's Possible CarMax, a Fortune 200 company, was the largest used-vehicle retailer in the United States in 2019, operating 206 stores in 102 markets nationwide. Started as “just a test” by then–electronic giant Circuit City in 1993, “CarMax revolutionized the auto industry by delivering an honest, transparent, and high-integrity car buying experience” to its customers. For 26 years, CarMax's focus had been on making “car buying more ethical, fair, and stress free by offering a no-haggle experience and an incredible selection of vehicles.” In addition, CarMax had made car selling easy by offering no-obligation appraisals good for seven days, using the slogan “At CarMax, we'll buy your car even if you don't buy ours.” Headquartered in Richmond, Virginia, as of February 2019, CarMax had “nearly 25,000 associates nationwide and for 15 consecutive years [had] been named as one of the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For.” The size of the pre-owned market in 2019 was at the highest levels since the recession, with sales of over 40 million vehicles totaling over $ 150 billion. Competition for this market included local dealer franchises that sold used cars, and large traditional players such as CarMax, Penske, AutoNation, and Lithia, plus a host of online dealerships that had recently emerged, such as CarsDirect and Carvana. Despite the intense competition, CarMax's sales had remained strong with impressive financial results (see Exhibit 1). CarMax sold more than one million vehicles (748,961 retail and 447,491 wholesale) in fiscal year 2019, a 7% increase from the previous year, while posting over $ 18 billion in revenue. In addition to selling more cars than any other used car dealer, an industry source reported that CarMax had the highest gross profit margin (over $ 2,100) and the highest gross profit per unit sold (10.7%). By comparison, upstart Carvana made less than $ 1,000 per car and a gross profit of about 5% per unit sold. In addition to competing through their different business models, the entire automotive industry was facing a great deal of disruptive change. During the annual shareholders' meeting on June 25, 2019, when Bill Nash, president and CEO of CarMax, was asked if he was concerned about the potential risks that new technologies (electric and autonomous vehicles in particular) and ride sharing posed to CarMax's business model, Nash responded: . . .

This case was designed to facilitate discussion of how a cyberattack was remediated by a major public university. Students are challenged to think through how to best manage the remediation project, including the application of best practices such as risk management, stakeholder management, communication plans, outsourcing/procurement management, and cyberattack remediation. The Phoenix Project was a success from multiple perspectives, and as such provides a useful example of how to manage an unplanned, mission-critical project well.

In this paper, we discuss the nature and use of the Delphi methodology in information systems research. More specifically, we explore how and why it may be used. We discuss criteria for evaluating Delphi research and define characteristics useful for categorizing the studies. We review Delphi application use in IS research over the last 23 years, summarize lessons learned from prior studies, offer suggestions for improvement, and present guidelines for employing this distinctly useful qualitative method in future information systems research studies.

Many IT projects continue to suffer from poor estimation. Indeed, the accuracy of estimation has hardly changed from that reported in a seminal study carried out over 20 years ago. Based on findings from two recent survey-based studies, which replicated and then extended the original study, we provide guidelines for improving IT project estimation, taking account of the greater use today of Agile, rather than traditional Waterfall, development methods.(1,2)

Beginning in the early 1980s, end-user computing (EUC) began to permeate organizations following the advent of the personal computer and a host of applications directed at the non-IS professional. Along with EUC came a whole new set of organizational opportunities and risks. Ten years later the World Wide Web has opened the door to a yet more powerful set of EUC applications capable of reaching well beyond the boundaries of the organization. Indeed, Web technology permits end users to design applications that are immediately accessible by unlimited numbers of people from anywhere in the world. As a result, EUC using Web technology has introduced a whole new set of opportunities and risks for organizations. The purpose of this research is to examine what strategies organizations are using in their attempt to maximize the benefits of the Web for end users while mitigating the inherent risks. To this end, individuals from twelve major organizations were surveyed via the Web. The results indicate that while organizations seem to be doing an adequate job of establishing roles and standards, mechanisms for resource allocation, development management, and maintenance appear to be lacking. In fact, most firms seem to be relying on a monopolist control strategy at this point in time. While such a strategy may be the best approach given tile relative infancy of Web technology, it could prove to be an unstable strategy in the long run given the reach, range and flexibility of access that Web technology provides. Organizations are encouraged to take a proactive, formal posture toward EUC development on the Web.

Project management has emerged as a strong discipline practiced by highly trained, certified professionals as organizations have come to realize they cannot stay in business if they cannot manage their projects effectively. However, most companies are still unable or unwilling to perform the most basic of continuous improvement activities – identifying and learning from past mistakes and successes. To help address this shortcoming, this paper provides a framework for conducting project retrospectives that has evolved through the analysis of 130 IT projects over the past ten years. By integrating the findings of several previous studies, the paper provides guidance on mapping project momentum, evaluating project success, identifying and avoiding classic mistakes through best practices, performing root cause analysis, and delivering actionable recommendations.

Every IT project experiences a distinct energy pattern-or momentum-during its lifecycle. An important role of the project manager is to recognize that pattern and make the adjustments necessary to ensure project success. This article defines the concept of momentum within the context of IT projects, introduces a tool for mapping and analyzing momentum, presents a representative case example, and identifies the lessons gleaned from analyzing the momentum maps of 51 IT projects. It also identifies a set of levers that project managers can use to proactively manage momentum and provides three specific guidelines for using momentum maps as a proactive management tool, as a retrospective tool (for post-implementation audits), and as a tool for communicating with project stakeholders.

In recent years, IT project failures have received a great deal of attention in the press as well as the boardroom. In an attempt to avoid disasters going forward, many organizations are now learning from the past by conducting retrospectives—that is, project postmortems or post-implementation reviews. While each individual retrospective tells a unique story and contributes to organizational learning, even more insight can be gained by examining multiple retrospectives across a variety of organizations over time. This research aggregates the knowledge gained from 99 retrospectives conducted in 74 organizations over the past seven years. It uses the findings to reveal the most common mistakes and suggest best practices for more effective project management.2

1 Jeanne Ross was the accepting Senior Editor for this article. 2 The author gratefully acknowledges Barb Wixom, Mike Morris, Peter Todd, Steve McConnell, Jerry Deville, Jeanne Ross, Barbara McNurlin, and the reviewers for their helpful suggestions on improving this article. My sincere thanks to the graduate students that conducted, and the organizations that participated in, the retrospectives that made this article possible. 3 Chaos Chronicles, Version 3.0 The Standish Group International, West Yarmouth, MA, 2003. Standish Group definitions: projects undertaken by Fortune 500 companies are completed successfully. In other words, almost twothirds of the 13,522 IT projects surveyed suffered from one or more of the following:

Understanding the successful adoption of information technology is largely based upon understanding the linkages among quality, satisfaction, and usage. Although the satisfaction and usage constructs have been well studied in the information systems literature, there has been only limited attention to information and system quality over the past decade. To address this shortcoming, we developed a model consisting of nine fundamental determinants of quality in an information technology context, four under the rubric of information quality (the output of an information system) and five that describe system quality (the information processing system required to produce the output). We then empirically examined the aptness of our model using a sample of 465 data warehouse users from seven different organizations that employed report-based, query-based, and analytical business intelligence tools. The results suggest that our determinants are indeed predictive of overall information and system quality in data warehouse environments, and that our model strikes a balance between comprehensiveness and parsimony. We conclude with a discussion of the implications for both theory and the development and implementation of information technology applications in practice.