Start-Up Tasks for Software Development Projects from Customer and Vendor Perspectives

Project start-up is defined as a short-term systematic process leading to project execution. Literature to date lacks emphasis on a definition of the project start-up phase and the tasks conducted during this phase. Whilst studies have explored causes of project failure to derive from the early stages of a project, limited studies have explored the impacts of project start-up tasks to a project’s execution and outcome. Using semi-structured interviews from 17 participants across 7 organizations, this study identifies the project start-up tasks and its impact to project delivery and outcomes from the perspective of in-house and outsourced projects. The start-up phase of each organization was then displayed in a comprehensive model depicting the substages within this phase, its corresponding tasks, and the ultimate outcome of each substage. Commonalities and variations within and across organizations are further highlighted