Failure of the Canadian Phoenix Payroll System: Lessons in IT Project Management

Running head: IT PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Information Technology Project Management
Topic: Failure of the Canadian Phoenix Payroll System in 2016
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1IT PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Executive Summary
The Canadian Phoenix Payroll System developed by the government was also an
incomprehensible failure that took place in 2016. The Phoenix pay system was planned in
2009 as an original idea by the public works for replacing the 40 year old pay system of the
traditional way in which federal government used to deliver the compensation to the
employees. The reasons due to which the Phoenix project failed were also due to the
misinterpretation or no planning of the risk factors. In addition to that the entire software was
not at all tested before implementing them to a particular system. This should have been done
since the entire project was at such a large scale and even it was handled by the government
of Canada. Thus, the entire analysis below ensures how project should be taken on especially
when they are related to Information Technology regarding the planning phase before getting
on to the implementation altogether.

2IT PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Background of the company..................................................................................................3
The project case of failure of Canadian Phoenix payroll system...........................................4
Identification, discussion, and justification of the criteria to measure the chosen project.....5
Analysis of the case based on the criteria identified..............................................................6
Recommendations......................................................................................................................7
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................8
References..................................................................................................................................9

3IT PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Introduction
Project planning ensures huge number of elements working behind the success of the
project. These elements and aspects work together to make the project success. Nevertheless,
if it is found that all of these elements are not working together under any circumstances or
due to any cause, the projects can also be declared as a debacle. Every year governments in
various countries take up numerous different IT projects and plan the entire project for the
sole purpose of obtaining success (Anthopoulos et al. 2016). Some are extremely successful
but there are some IT projects that do not see the face of success and are considered as
failures due to various problems they face during the planning phase. The following report
would analyse and justify why this IT project has been issued failure, what were the reasons
behind it and how the problems could have been avoided to make the project a huge success,
rather than a failure.
Identification of the project
There have been many successful project as well as unsuccessful ones when it comes
to the Information Technology projects. There are various constraints under which the
organization of Public Services and Procurement of Canada and its failed IT payroll system
for which it was identified as a feasible project because of the unanimity about it. It is for this
reason that it is available for information online given its huge failure.
Discussion about the Project
The Phoenix pay system is considered to be a system developed by the Canadian
federal government as a payroll processing system for the government employees working
under the registration of Canada and is essentially done by the Public Services and