Developing and implementing customized IT systems can be frustrating to both the developers and the users. From comprehensive observations made from three case studies of Swedish firms involved in developing and implementing ERP systems, certain reflections might be made that suggest that system development tends to occur by a series of sequential projects. This article develops some background necessary to understand the complexity that tends to arise in these projects. An illustration is given from an example obtained from the field, which reflects the observations made from classical literature on adoption processes and decision-making.

Projects designed to implement customized IT systems, such as ERP systems, could be seen as risky undertakings. That is, many of these projects do not keep the time, cost, and scope objectives that have been decided for the project. For instance, it has been noted that about 90% of the ERP projects in the US do not meet expectations (Standish group, 2003). The definition of an unsuccessful project is that it does not fulfill the original expectations about costs, time and competitive advantages (cf. Kumar, 2002; Berggren and Lindqvist, 2001). Thus, if the implementing organization's expectations are not fulfilled and acceptance of the system is not reached, then this failure suggests that the IT project has failed to a major or minor degree (cf. Cannon, 1994).

There are, of course, reasons why these projects suffer. To be sure, contracted projects have time and budget limits agreed upon initially (Söderlund and Tjäder, 2001). In projects designed to implement customized systems, however, there are most frequently two organizations involved. First, there is a data consultancy and its associates, who deliver the software and modify it so it will mesh with the customer/client organization's system and needs. Second, there is the implementing company and its associates who cooperate with the consultants from the data consultancy. Individuals in these two groups must communicate frequently with each other in order to make appropriate decisions during the project process (Müller, 2003). Further, in order to understand each other there are meetings arranged to develop knowledge about both the system and the organization responsible for implementation (Andersson, 2006), which in themselves make knowledge exploitation during the project process problematic (Linderoth and Lundqvist, 2004). Moreover, knowledge creation could also be a problem because of the participants' limited knowledge about each other's knowledge base initially (Christensen and Kreiner, 1997).

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