This case study showcases the implementation and evaluation concerning A-Bank's innovative platform. The partnering of A-Bank and Techsource in a receipt imaging system did not pan out as smoothly as they would have liked. A-Bank's mission statement was to provide the best and most innovative financial services available at the most reasonable cost to their customers. This philosophy would have been aligned with the receipt-imaging project in question if it was delivered on time and within budget. The study conducted by Group 5 has shown that several issues arose throughout the project stages: planning, stakeholders, cost, team, scope, risks, and time management. Here we dive more in-depth to find out what actually made the project such a failure and what could have made it a success. Planning activities represent a critical part of the project, mapping out what needs to be accomplished and how the progress of the project will be monitored. To understand what went wrong with A-Bank's planning, the ongoing project along with the implementation of the receipt imaging software must be considered. Although top management gave Smith use of unlimited resources and priority, his miscommunication and faulty planning did not show them how imperative it was for them to have a continued and active role in the planning of the project. Due to this, they only met for a brief moment and left out almost 80% of the receipts used by A-Bank and requested by Techsource. This lack of commitment led to a very blas attitude and a false impression of what the project scope entailed. If there had been a properly developed strategic plan Smith would have realized the need for the representation of a cross-functional team. These were the critical stakeholders in this venture and had they been at least represented as such and communicated with, the misunderstanding of what receipts A-Bank utilizes would have never happened. By creating the plan and therefore the project road map, important questions giving the project direction would have been answered. Not completing this step meant that much of the criteria for monitoring and thus measuring the project progress and success was missing. Another failure for the project was the inadequate attention to change management in the beginning of this planning phase. This has a lot to do with Smith's deficiency in communicating accurate, timely, and relevant information to the appropriate people. The stakeholders affected by the receipt imaging system were numerous. Techsource, the external stakeholder of the project, first began requesting data regarding the receipt formatting and Vendor software. The issues began when Techsource received only 18 command formats, which was due to Smith and top management's lack of commitment in determining the vastness of the scope and which stakeholders would be affected. Stakeholders, from the V.P. of Services, accounting, collection, and the real estate teams, should have been involved in order to determine all of their command formats. With more errors arriving, it seemed that both A-Bank and Techsource employees were stuck in a blame-game; each party trying to place the issues at hand on one another. Smith, frustrated by how long the implementation was taking as well as the lack of attention that Techsource was giving the project, left the company and Matt Bond took over. Bond's persistence for updates, as well as his skills and experience in the IT and accounting fields helped speed along the implementation process, but not without Techsource themselves relieving several employees. Overall, project failure was in part due to lack of identifying the stakeholders and consequently not involving them in the planning and development stages. A-Bank was faced with tangible costs, the initial $110,000, maintenance contract for $3,000 a month (for five years), a nominal charge per receipt, scheduling for extensive training sessions, and the additional cost to upgrade all workstations to a static IP service. Bond's entrance to the project added additional costs as well. He found it essential to boost employee moral and therefore negotiated, upon completion of the project, a monetary bonus for his team. Indirect costs of company morale and customer dissatisfaction were also incurred. More importantly, A-Bank runs the high opportunity cost of being a leader in technology. Because the project took much longer than expected, the ultimate sacrifice of being on the forefront of technology was made; loss of their competitive edge was massive and difficult to calculate. ABank anticipated the payback period for the project to be within the two-year contract. Consistent delays meant that it would take much longer to complete. Ultimately the estimated payback period was still about two and a half years away. A-Bank has continued to pay the $3,000 a month, totaling $72,000 over the years, and has yet to see the system work let alone show profits of any kind. All totaled, the cost aspect of the project was viewed as unsuccessful. The team was made up of the external third party group Techsource and an IS team from A-bank. Smith was hand picked as the project manager by A-Bank's CIO for his extensive technology background, yet he lacked experience in project management. One of the team's unexpected tasks was to convert all the workstations to a static IP address. Because some of the bank employees worked from home, this proved to be a major issue. More problems continued to surface when Techsource began implementing the software. These along with other critical delays affected team morale. Smith's counterpart at Techsource was no longer dedicated to the project and thus proper attention to these issues was absent. The lack of communication between Smith's team and that of Techsource at almost every stage guaranteed project failure. For Matt, motivating the team was priority, especially since by this time none of them wanted to be associated with the project. The offering of a monetary bonus for a successful project implementation within 3-months was an effective step. The team pulled together, got back on track, and successfully implemented the software within the deadline. The scope of the project was to deliver many benefits to the stakeholders. With these benefits being the overall objectives, Smith should have established the project requirements early on. By specifying all expectations clearly in the beginning of the project he would have avoided later costs. The failure to create a scope statement documenting agreed upon critical information also led to misunderstandings throughout the project. He should have spent a considerable amount of time consulting with the IT personnel, lead tellers, service center managers, and all the executives on the requirements, and development of the scope statement and deliverables. This would have given the project overall objectives, specific deliverables, milestones that monitor progress, and the blueprint for a WBS showing the resources needed and the critical path to complete the project. By Techsource signing off on the scope statement they would have had an understanding of the expectations made and that they were realistic. From the beginning, the scope of the project was a failure as it lacked a multitude of project success factors. The change in the project managers from Smith to Bond led to more expertise and coordination allowing for the project to restart on a direct path to completion. A-Bank was one of the first banks to implement technology into banking; they were considered a risk taker. This is not an easy position but it can be followed by significant payoffs. Using a cost-benefit analysis, A-Bank's CIO narrowed the third party vendor to Techsource. Although they were established and not expensive there was a sizable risk involved. Techsource had never implemented software with A-Bank's host, Vendor. Techsource assured A-bank's CIO that this would not be an issue and without conducting a risk analysis A-Bank took their word for it and moved forward with their plan to use this new external vendor. Contingency plans would have introduced adequate response measures to this seeming high level of risk that they had assumed. However, the lack of any type of plan to include contingency and change management planning, meant that when the project went sideways, and it did, there would be no preventative or altered actions planned. After two years of project failure the bank assigned a new project manager. This was a risky move as well, since he was a new introduction to an in progress project and his demands of breaking the contract with Techsource were harsh and final. A-Bank had very few things figured out in regards to time. The estimate was for the project to be fully implemented within two months and Techsource was confident that the installation and training would take only two days. Smith should have used either Program Evaluation Review Technique (PERT) or the Critical Path Method (CPM) to aide in a more appropriate time estimate. This would have helped them see the potential issues that would arise as well as potential bottlenecks allowing for proper risk analysis to be conducted on the critical aspects and constraints of the project. A-Bank's management should have realized that there was a planning and communication issue as soon as the two-month deadline came and went. Deliverables are measured by their completion time and whether they are within the budgeted amount. With no deliverables being produced, management should have intervened earlier than they did. During our analysis, we gained insight as to what to expect from a project. We felt that planning and risk analysis were the two most critical phases of the project and thus the lack of them was the main culprit for overall failure. By the project taking so long to complete (and the costs associated), the question of whether it still offered the bank a competitive advantage or even that it was still the best solution to the initial issue, arose. Later when the project was completed and implemented successfully, the question would then become, would the firm be using the software long enough to recoup all of the additional costs. All phases of a project aide in the determination of whether it is successful or not. Taking the proper time to plan leads to reduction of costs later and an increase in productivity overall. Focusing on the bottom line, to deliver a successful project, one that targets the consumers likes, the shareholders expectations and the project team's efforts, is essential. Therefore, it is always important to plan for every stage, phase, activity, and unit