Chapter 2. Cost management of an information system IT project in the conditions of incomplete information about its elements

The object of the study is the process of managing IT project decisions.
During the study, the problem of modeling losses during the design of a description of an information system (IS) element in conditions of incompleteness or lack of complete information about this element was solved. Research in this area is devoted to the development and improvement of models for making design decisions in conditions of complete certainty, risk and partial uncertainty. The formation and making decisions on managing IT projects in conditions of partial uncertainty remain almost unexplored.
It is proposed to use for the IT industry a cause-and-effect scheme for the formation of losses in industrial production due to the lack of information. According to this scheme, the consequences of the situation of the lack of information about the description of the IS element and the loss models that characterize these consequences were analyzed. The proposed scheme was adapted to the features of the design and implementation processes of IS elements. Detailed loss models were developed for the four main consequences of the situation of incompleteness or lack of information about the description of the IS element.
Experimental verification of the obtained results was carried out on the basis of the IT project for the creation of the “Formation and maintenance of an individual plan of a scientific and pedagogical employee of the department” functional task. The consequences of identifying an incomplete description of the “Formation of the “Methodical work” section” functional task in the process of designing the database of this task were considered. Two options for replacing the incomplete description of this function were proposed: using a description of a similar “Formation of the “Scientific Work” section” functional task; using the description of the “Formation and maintenance of regulatory and reference information on KPI” functional task selected from the IT project backlog. For the first option, the estimate of possible losses is USD 346.44. For the second option, the estimate of possible losses is USD 264.9.
During the analysis of the obtained results, it was noted that the obtained estimates characterize losses only on the IT project iteration that is planned. To increase the accuracy of the assessment of losses from eliminating the situation of lack of information about the description of the IS element, further research was deemed necessary. It was also deemed appropriate to conduct prospective research on the creation of IS and information technologies to support the assessment and decision-making of the management of an IT company and its IT projects in a time regime close to real time.