Managing Leadership in a Systems Acquisition Life Cycle: A Strategic Framework

Software process models in the context of IT acquisition capture user information. In many cases user requirements are captured and/or understood poorly or at times user is not able to define its own requirements; this may lead to modification in the system or even re-work. Systems acquisition in an organization brings in a new environment. This not only changes the way process is handled (process re-engineering), but also affects the business culture and the overall performance. An acquisition is said to be successful if it is put to effective use, benefits are achieved as expected. Successful management of these issues is possible through organization of leadership and it should be well planned before initiation of systems acquisition i.e. in pre-acquisition stage. In this paper these leadership issues related to user involvement and organization's preparedness to handle an acquisition life cycle are discussed. The paper describes a framework to test its "fitness" through structural equation modeling to be used for understanding the predictive behavior of the acquisition success.