Project Management in IT related Projects
The improvement of any research, especially, in project management depends entirely on alternative social changes, reconstruction and normative issues. The relationship between these aspects of social changes can lead to both positive and negative effects. To succeed in project management that is based on social science, the researcher must be in a position to defend arguments against false beliefs. Working in relation to the human needs is one major way of achieving good results. Social science criticism involves social responsibilities that sometimes fail to address normative questions. Critical social science therefore needs to be addressed and acknowledged through the proper normative disclosure.
Critical realism concerning any matter that relates to social science is very important as it is the means through which different research projects are achieved. According to Roy Bhaskar a British philosopher, critical realism in the philosophy of social science is an aspect that helps to do away with postmodern challenges. The aim of critical realism is to show the significant objective of carrying out a critical project. Critical realism is socially situated rather than socially determined. This means that in social science, critical realism maintains the objective criticism that helps to promote change in social science. The ultimate importance of the social change aids in the development of human freedom.
Roy Bhaskar came up with the philosophy of science known as transcendental realism and critical naturalism. Other authors combined these two critiques where they consequently formed critical realism. Transcendental realism shows that there are some elements of social science that must be fulfilled. The objective of the investigation must be real, easy to manipulate and should obviously apply internal mechanisms that should be put in place to achieve certain outcome. A research project is like an experiment that is done through the application of the mentioned sentiments. The major implication of critical realism in social science is to understand it as an on-going process. There are certain changes that need to be done in order to understand the objective of the research.
Social science includes the common sense in order to understand the subject matter of a given research. Therefore, there is a common relationship between critical realism and social science. The relationship is used as means to understand consciousness of evaluating what has not been examined. Failing to use critical realism in social science leads to poor evaluations thus inadequacies exists in research. Another major aspect is social phenomena that go hand in hand with the evaluation and criticism of the understanding of societies in regard to social science. For instance, to make an evaluation on economic recession, it is important to critically evaluate formal and informal theories that give information on the performance of politicians, individuals and perhaps institutions. Social science is the backbone of every research project because critical understanding of the society gives adequate information. Society is the major source of information because anything that happens in the modern society is the reflection of activities carried on by the society members. To achieve good results, there is a need to be objective, critical and observe common basics for understanding.
The philosophical observation of social science can be compared with an experiment that is done practically to achieve certain outcome. Knowledge and social science are two common elements that go hand in hand to show the critical realism about reality. The most important issue in philosophy is to address the matter of how reality should be taken to make the existence of social science real. This is the argument of Roy Bhasker and it is a true reflection of what happens in the society. Researchers have to apply a framework that provides guidelines so as to reflect the theoretical practice of the human intervention in reality. However, from the perspective of critical realism the society is that it is structured, stratified and elusive and these three elements justify the importance of scientific research and theory. Roy Bhasker developed three basic domains of reality from realist theory of science that is empirical, actual and real.
The empirical aspect of reality consists of life experiences that shape the human lifestyle, actual domain consists of events that might be or may not be experienced in life and the real domain consists of activities that may be experienced or fail to be experienced in both actual and empirical domain. Knowledge is very important in the social aspect of the human life, because it is used to deal with reality. This clearly leads to the explanation of how it is impossible to remove reality without making an object cease. Critical realism is a social science element that differentiates radical from empiricist concepts. It is an explanation of why and what makes events happen as they occur in the real life of human beings. This is the guiding principle of philosophy as a reflection of social science. There are some observations made in real life situations that sustain critical realism.
The first observation is that causal powers are deeply rooted to their inner structure that cannot be easily observed. This requires the internal power and capacity so as to show how realism is the basic mechanism that leads to the generation of the output. The second observation is that there must exist external conditions that trigger generative mechanisms. These external conditions help to differentiate between the objective mechanisms of generation and the actual effects of realism. The third observation is to understand casualty in relation to the tendencies that characterize the objective structure. In order to be real, an individual needs not to understand empirical events because some external conditions may not exist. In addition, the external factors should not always be considered as the sole cause of generative mechanism.
As compared to the social science research, IT governance involves a system in which all business stakeholders such as internal customers, the board of directors, the heads of departments have the capacity to express their view when it comes to the organizational decision making process. This is an important aspect of social science that incorporates all stakeholders in the decision making process, so that nobody will be blamed incase a misfortune occurs. The users are exposed to an internal system that advocates for views of every individual who has the capacity to make decision. Governance has been the major problem for many business entities and this has forced business leaders to incur a lot of finance trying to improve it. The good business governance is the success of all organization entities while the bad governance leads to an ineffective way of the business administration processes.
The causal powers that constitute social structures allow human beings to act in the way they act in real life. Individuals act in a manner to suggest both closed and open systems that are based on structural powers and the knowledge of human beings. A closed system works without the support of other generative mechanisms to achieve the desired outcome of the researcher. This is a reflection of the natural social science events that a researcher considers to isolate generative mechanisms from other behaviors. On the other hand, an open system is a reflection of reality in social science that interconnects various generative mechanisms such as culture, religion, race, social life and technology. These generative mechanisms work independently, thus they counteract the causal tendencies of each other. The society, in which individuals live, is a social science phenomena that is composed of different strata, such as social, biological and psychological. These strata are relatively independent from each other and constitute the open system of generative mechanism that does not necessarily lead to causal effects.
The different types of inferences used to explain the social phenomena differentiate the realist from other researchers. The research topic of this paper, IT auditing and governance, is a reflection of the generative mechanism. This observation is true because there are particular observable changes associated with IT auditing and governance as in the case of social phenomena. Realist researchers emphasize on observable events and non observable structures that are critical in IT auditing and governance. An IT auditor works in close range with the provisions of generative mechanisms and this is a reflection on the importance of research objective. The use of knowledge too is a reflection on how social science must be critical on its object. When an IT auditor has no knowledge of how to apply the information technology governance, the research on particular area may be of no importance.
Explanation is another important concept of critical realism, which considers the aims of social science that is to explain social conditions in a particular phenomenon. IT auditing and governance is a reflection of causal powers that are found in unobservable structures. The auditor carries out his or her duties independently and this leads to the evaluation and assessment of various weak areas in the social organization. There are six stages that are connected to the unobservable inner structure of a researcher. The six stages include the following the description, analytical resolution, theoretical redescription, reintroduction, comparison and contextualization. These stages reflect the effects of IT auditing and governance in regard to the generative mechanism that results in concrete situations.
Like all facets of social sciences, ineffective governance creates problems that complicate the process of insurance, blown budgets, poor investments and the failure of IT applications in other sectors. The problem of ineffective governance results in the frustration of the organizational activities and the paralysis of transactions. Governance also promotes the creation of business transactions that lead to the expansion of business and thus to high profits. Governance has led to the development of business and IT that results in the promotion of strategic vision for many organizations. Governance has also led to the delivery of important functions that support good business plans hence the organization moves forward. The major role of governance in business is to ensure that entities achieve the value in IT thus reducing risks related to the information technology projects.
The role of the IT audit is associated with business models that constantly keep on changing due to the development of information technologies. The change in the way business is carried out should be accompanied with the way auditors resort to in carrying out their duties. Andrew Sayer argues that social science is only critical about its change and this reflects how IT audit and governance are related. During the past years, there has been the technological evolution accompanied by new business models such as outsourcing, decentralization and down sizing. These changes have taken auditing profession to another level that embraces the culture of the information technology. Business transactions are no more local due to the development of the internet that is integrated into business to provide a good environment for business transactions.
The audit framework leads to the generative mechanism that helps individuals to evaluate on their performance in various aspects of social life. The role of information technology auditing therefore has seen many business entities achieve their goals which is the major objective of any social science research.
Through the provision of a good framework, IT auditors work more efficiently than ever before producing good results. The framework provides for planning, organization, acquisition, delivery, implementation, support and monitoring. These are the common governance models that are aligned with business strategies to come up with good performance. The performance of auditors and the cooperation of business leaders enhance the evaluation of governance models that makes it easy to establish weak areas in the organization. The establishment of weak areas in the management of the organization is the main objective of auditing task. It is important in the sense that measures are put in place to seal these loopholes that are used fro sole benefit of the management.
There are certain generative mechanism models that are used with other business strategies resulting in a good outcome. The first model is planning and organization that incorporate the efforts of the management and the board of directors. Business leaders have the capacity to develop strategies that ensure businesses to achieve their objectives through putting in place a technological infrastructure. The service of IT auditors is very necessary when it comes to the implementation of the best policies to be used, since they are thus responsible for any auditing problem that arises. The role of the auditor is to evaluate and check whether the delivery of services in the business entity is in line with business objectives. He or she is concerned with the quality management that involves the development of the strategic planning. The strategic plan should be in line with the entities mission and the vision statement which must guide the auditor. In addition, it should align with identification of various work plans, various measurement policies to be adopted and the recognition of specific projects. The aim of the IT auditor in this case is to come up with strategic IT plan, determination of technological direction, communicate the aims and directions of management, ensure there is strict compliance with external requirements, assess risks and manage quality.
The second governance model is the acquisition and the implementation that helps the auditor to realize good business strategies and tactics. The solution to IT related problems needs to be acquired, developed and identified. The auditors role is to asses the best process for developing and acquiring good models. The support in terms of control in regard to the acquisition and maintenance of good application software should be provided. The role of the IT auditor in the implementation and maintenance includes the identification of good automated solutions, acquisition and maintenance of the application software, evaluation of development and maintenance procedures, support management changes, evaluation of accredit systems that have been installed and evaluating the acquired technology infrastructure.
The third governance model is delivery and support that is concerned with the IT service delivery. Activities involved in this model include training, support and security. The role of auditor in this particular model is to assess, evaluate and to ensure strong security of systems is maintained. The process and role of auditor in this case includes
Evaluation or assessment of mangers service level
Management of third party services
Manage the performance and capacity of business leaders
Ensuring that there is continuous service evaluation
Evaluate systems security through support strategies
Identification of education and training costs through evaluation methods
Provide assistance to customers through evaluation of advise techniques
Management of data, facilities, operations, problems and incidents.
The fourth governance model that is used with other business strategies in IT auditing is monitoring. All business operations need a much supervision and assessment through monitoring. The assessment is done to ensure that business entity complies with particular control requirements so as to achieve business objectives. The auditor in this case is responsible for providing the full support of business activities. The IT auditor is concerned with performance of various measurement policies that were established through strategic plans. The auditor is supposed to compare the established parameters with achievement factors that have been set. In addition, the auditor should compare success factors against outcomes that are related to the stakeholders expectations. This domain requires the auditor to monitor certain processes, provide independent audit, access internal control adequacy and support independent assurance assessment. The role of the auditor is to build a strong IT governance business environment that is aligned with the business objectives and that satisfies the stakeholders needs.
The role of the project management in any research paper or business entity is to review the steps involved in planning, controlling and organizing. It is a way of building up a good schedule that helps to measure the success or failure of business entity. Project management evaluates policies that help to execute the planning process, the estimation of project costs, builds strong team work, establishes stages of risk management and helps in management of project interface. The critical application of research procedures of IT auditing and governance in project management has led to achievement of business objectives. This is a clear prove that social science is critical in its object and understanding of social phenomena is very crucial in any research.
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