IT Project Postmortem Theory: Identifying Root Causes by Process Tracing

IT projects often fail. Postmortem analysis is a well-established method for investigating accidents and failures ex post facto to develop preventive actions against similar failures in the future. In IT project postmortems, the identification of root causes is often not explicitly based on well-developed theory for causal inference. This is significant, because strong theoretical foundations strengthen the legitimacy of recommendations based on postmortem analysis. This paper is a theoretical exploration of process tracing for causal inference in postmortem analysis. We (a) analyse how process tracing can provide theoretical foundations for causal inference in IT project postmortem analysis, and we (b) explain how the literature on IT project failure factors can be utilised for identifying root causes and eliminating rival explanations. The analysis of process tracing for IT project postmortems is new and original. The results of this study provide theoretical foundations, a theoretical framework, for postmortem analysis of failed IT projects. The results are applicable for policy makers and practitioners for the endorsement and performance of IT project postmortems.