An Investigation of Business-to-Business Relationships within Large Multi-Vendor Software Implementations based on Commitment-Trust Theory

大型软件项目的实施和管理往往成为外部服务提供商的专利。一些较大的项目由数百名客户和第三方团队成员组成，他们可能分布在多个地理位置和时区。最近有人认为，这些软件实现项目的规模和复杂性不断增加，导致它们表现出复杂系统的行为和特征。这种新出现的行为在很大程度上可能是由于团队成员众多而产生的复杂性，以及越来越多的趋势，特别是在公共部门，使用背靠背固定价格合同的多个供应商来执行项目。因此，有时很难确切了解谁负责解决可能跨越多个项目的新出现的风险和问题，谁负责个别项目的端到端交付，以及谁最终负责成功交付整个工作方案。如果不清楚地了解涉及多个供应商和虚拟团队的项目的紧急行为(可能是不同的文化和地理上分散的)，就很难明确地预测项目成功的可能性。我们打算调查软件项目团队(包括客户和供应商)内的信任是否是成功实施项目的先决条件。数据将通过对IT咨询项目经理的半结构化定性访谈来收集，重点是他们与客户和其他供应商人员发展工作关系的经验。受访者还将被要求回忆细分中的关键事件，并重新建立与客户和其他业务伙伴在项目上的关系。将使用一系列统计和计算建模方法，包括多变量统计技术和以代理人为基础的计算建模，对所得数据进行分析。基于代理的模拟实验的使用有望提供对商业社交网络中信任和承诺传播的洞察。我们相信，这一实验可以提供对大型软件实现的项目管理的健壮性和脆弱性的洞察。然后，这些发现可能导致设计和开发新的项目生命周期方法、方法，以及基于团队成员网络中承诺和信任的传播来管理项目的概念性框架。

The implementation and management of large software projects often becomes the preserve of external service providers. Some of the larger projects consist of hundreds of customer and third-party team members, who may be located across multiple geographies, and time zones. It has recently been argued that the increasing size and complexity of these software implementation projects, leads them to exhibit the behaviours and traits of complex systems. This emergent behaviour may, to a large degree, be due to the complexity stemming from the large number of team members, and the growing trend, especially in the public sector, of using multiple vendors with back-to-back fixed price contracts to implement the projects. As a consequence it is sometimes difficult to understand exactly who is accountable for resolving emerging risks and issues that may span multiple projects, who is responsible for end-to-end delivery of individual projects, and who is ultimately accountable for successful delivery of the entire programme of work. Without a clear understanding of the emergent behaviour of projects involving multiple vendors and virtual teams (which may be culturally diverse and geographically dispersed), it is difficult to definitively predict the likelihood of programme success.We intend to investigate whether the generation of trust within software project teams (both customer and vendor) is a prerequisite for successful implementation of projects. Data will be collected through semi-structured qualitative interviews with IT consulting project managers, focusing on their experiences of developing working relationships with personnel from customers and other vendors. Interviewees will also be asked to recall critical incidents in the breakdown, and re-establishment of relations with the customer and other business partners on projects. The resulting data will be analysed using a range of statistical and computational modelling approaches, including multivariate statistical techniques and agent-based computational modelling. The use of agent-based simulation experimentation is expected to provide insight into the propagation of trust and commitment within business social networks. We believe that this experimentation may provide insight into the robustness and fragility of project management of large software implementations. These findings may then lead to the design and development of new approaches for project lifecycles, methodologies, and a conceptual framework for managing projects that is based on the propagation of commitment and trust along the network of team members.