Mazen El-Masri | Profile | Students Ph.D. in Administration

PhD Milestones

PhD Start	01-2007
End of Phase I : Preparation	04-2008
End of Phase II : Specialisation	06-2009
Comprehensive examination	06-2009
Start of Phase III : Thesis	06-2009
Phase III : Public presentation of thesis proposal	05-2010

Academic Profile

Research	Dissertation title: “Decision Support for Software Project Risk Management: A Three Essay Dissertation” The study takes a design science approach to propose a theory for a decision support system (DSS) for software project risk management. The design of the DSS addresses the interplay between factors that contribute to project risk. The dissertation is by article. The first article is conceptual. It theorizes on the nature of software project success and puts forward a multi-dimensional success construct. In the second article, I conduct a semantic decompositional analysis to define software project risk and specify it according to four dimensions. I test the model using a qualitative meta-analysis. In the third article, I develop an IS design theory for software project risk management. The design principles are derived from the findings of the first two articles as well as the content analysis of software project failures narratives. In order to provide support for the proposed theory, I will conduct a field study. A prototype of the DSS that is consistent with the design principles of the proposed theory is developed. I plan to validate the utility of the prototype by intervening in the risk management of a software project in an organizational setting.
Research interests	- IT Project Management - Decision Support Systems - Business Intelligence - Virtual Teams - Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning - Knowledge Management - Social Information Systems - Strategic Management of Information Technology
Keywords related to my research interests	Information Technology Systems software project risk management process case survey qualitative quantitative semantic analysis design science action research success
Publications	El-Masri, M. and Rivard, S. “The Specification of the Software Project Risk Construct”, AMCIS 2010 Proceedings, Lima, Peru, August, 2010. El-Masri, M. “A Model of IS Project Success”, Proceedings of the Administrative Sciences Association of Canada (ASAC), Niagara Falls, Canada, June, 2009. El-Masri, M. “Solving ordinary differential equations: application and performance, ” Concordia University (Canada), Canada, 2003, p. 105. El-Masri, M. and Rivard, S. “A Design Theory for Project Risk Management DSS”, Working Paper. El-Masri, M. and Rivard, S. “The Specification of the Software Project Success Construct”, Working Paper. El-Masri, M. and Addas, S. “The Antecedents of the Career Orientation of IT Professionals”, Working Paper.
Presentations and Conferences	 Queens-HEC Conference (2011) Kingston, Ontario, Canada.  Americas Conference on Information Systems – AMCIS – (2010) Lima, Peru.  Administrative Science Association of Canada (2009) – ASAC – Niagara, Ontario, Canada.  International Conference on Design Science Research in Information Systems and Technology (2008) – DESRIST – Atlanta, Georgia, USA.  International Conference on Information Systems (2007) – ICIS – Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Services to the academic community	 Course Developer and Lecturer (Course : Gestion de projets : applications en développement logiciels – course#: 30-702-10)  Course Co-lecturer \| Bachelor Level (Algorithmique et programmation en gestion – course #: 2-750-04)  Course Lecturer \| MBA (MBA workshop – course #: 50-058-05).  Course Lecturer \| Bachelor Level (Course: IT in Organizations – course #: 2-708-04).
Grants and prizes	 Recipient of the 12, 000$ Jean-Louis Mercier’s excellence bursary (HEC, 2010).  Research reviewer of the year award at the ICIS conference (2007).  Participant in the “Doctoral Students Consortium, Americas Conference on Information Systems, ” Peru, Lima 2010, by invitation.  Teacher of the year at Hariri High School II (1998).
Professional Associations Membership	 Certified member of the Project Management Institute (PMI).  Member of the association for Information Systems (AIS).  Member of the Administrative Sciences Association of Canada (ASAC).

CV

Bio	A software project manager with experience in all main functions of the software development lifecycle. Strong and diverse background in point-of-sale and retail software. Involvement in the IT professional and intellectual communities (PMI, IEEE, ASAC, and AIS) to continually adjust operative methodologies with novel techniques. Successfully managed 4/4 software development projects; two of which were P.O.S projects. Turned around a large and troubled software project and led it to success. Directed a R&D department of 19 IT professionals and 3 project managers. Skills in establishing PMO using tailored agile CMMI processes and adapted IEEE standards. Served on the board of directors outlining future direction of the company’s software products and aligning the business-IT strategy.
Professional Experience	ISACSOFT – LIBRARY SOFTWARE (MONTREAL) 2009 ————————————————————————— Director of Software Development and Architecture Recruited on a contract basis to direct the department of software development and manage multiple software development projects for the next generation of java web based products. Related objectives are to improve the productivity of the development staff and the business value yielded from software projects. Accomplishments  Successfully managed a portfolio of 6 development projects and a team of 22 software professionals.  Took over a troubled 2400 man-day web-based software project after the project managers’s resignation and managed it towards success. The solution has been implemented at over 20 client sites.  Redesigned the existing architecture of a suite of new applications to respond to future business opportunities. As a result, the company could deliver value early and react promptly to market needs.  Identified value-added features and functionalities resulting in new contracts in Isacsoft’s target market and gave the company an entry to the retail market.  Standardized different R&D related documents and processes resulting in an increase in team productivity and satisfaction as well as improved product quality. EPICOR – ERP AND RETAIL SOFTWARE (MONTREAL) 2003-2008 ——————————————————————————————– IT Project Manager (and technical leader) Took an adaptive role of managing .NET based projects and designing the integration of applications in post-merger environment. Accomplishments  Successfully managed a 1300 man-day .NET P.O.S SOA (web-services) project.  Successfully managed and participated in the development of a 740 man-day .NET CRM BI project.  Successfully managed a 500 man-days P.O.S WCF application and led a team of 3 developers.  Applied academic and technical knowledge to enhance the communication and coordination between the offices in Ohio and Montreal leading to the successful collaboration in a post-merger environment. NSB GROUP – RETAIL AND POS SOFTWARE (MONTREAL) 2000-2003 —————————————————————————————— Senior Web Software Developer and System Architecture Specialist Assigned to work on the design and development of new technology retail applications. Accomplishments  Introduced new ideas in terms of technological solutions that reduced the required work breakdown structure and resulted in a more flexible and maintainable product.  Investigated the quality and existing design of a software product and recommended the abandonment of a 4000 man-day project which would have eventually resulted in failure and financial loss.  Helped improve, through “buddying”, the technical skills of legacy developers and acclimatized them to become thin client programmers (ASP, XML/HTML/DOM, and scripting based technologies). STS SYSTEMS – RETAIL SOFTWARE (CANADA) 1998-2000 —————————————————————————— Technical Support Analyst and Application Specialist Recruited to technically support legacy and new technology customers. Accomplishments  Introduced new solutions for debugging and monitoring customers’ UNIX and NT systems by programming bourne and awk scripts for applications’ interfaces, pipelining, and reporting.  Specialized in a complex “Warehouse Management System” exclusively supported by the R&D department and relocated its client services to the support department which resulted in increased revenue and improved customer satisfaction.
Teaching Experience	HEC (MONTREAL) SUMMER 2011, FALL 2011, WINTER 2012 ——————————————————————————– Course Developer and Lecturer (Course : Gestion de projets : applications en développement logiciels) Recruited to develop and teach an advanced course on software project management (course#: 30-702-10) for the project management certificate program (fall 2011 and winter 2012). Teaching by cases method (hands-on) is used as the primary pedagogical approach. Accomplishments  Developed four new case studies that were successfully practiced in class.  Adapted three case studies from articles previously published in the Journal of Information Systems and Education (JISE) and the Communications of the AIS (CAIS).  Three of the newly developed case studies were successfully used by another professor at HEC Montreal.  One of the newly developed case studies was successfully used by a professor at Iéseg School of Management (Lille, France). HEC (MONTREAL) FALL 2010 —————————————- Course Lecturer \| MBA & Bachelor Level Recruited to co-teach two courses. They are: (1) Algorithmique et programmation en gestion (course #: 2-750-04), and (2) MBA workshop (course #: 50-058-05). Accomplishments  Received positive feedback from the professor I worked with as well as the program director. HEC (MONTREAL) SUMMER 2010 ——————————————— Course Lecturer \| Bachelor Level (Course: IT in Organizations) Recruited to teach a course on IT management in organizations (course #: 2-708-04). Accomplishments  Received distinguished course evaluation reviews (~ 3.48/4.0). HEC (MONTREAL) SUMMER 2009 ——————————————— Course Lecturer \| Bachelor Level (Course: IT in Organizations) Recruited to teach a course on IT management in organizations (course #: 2-708-04). Accomplishments  Received distinguished course evaluation reviews (~ 3.55/4.0). NSB GROUP – A SUBSIDIARY OF EPICOR SOFTWARE (MONTREAL) 2003-2005 ——————————————————————————————————– Instructor and Curriculum Designer Part of my responsibilities at NSB Group as a technical leader was to prepare technical training programs. I was involved with the development of the NTU (New Technology University) curriculum at NSB Group; a six month training program for newly hired developers and support analysts. Accomplishments  Prepared a 200 page training program and trained new IT staff on the technical and application support of Warehouse Management Systems.  Instructed new IT staff on topics like SQL, Object-Oriented Programming (C++, C#), Web Development (XML, DHTML, XSL, CSS, etc.), and database management (Oracle and SQL Server). HARIRI HIGH SCHOOL II (LEBANON) 1998 ———————————————————- Computer science teacher Recruited to teach basic computer literacy to high school students. I used study plans that included Microsoft Operating System, MS-Office, DOS, Hardware peripherals, and introduction to programming. Accomplishments  Transformed the perception students have of the computer science class to become one of the essential courses in the school curriculum.  Developed new curriculums for advanced classes which included software development (MS-Access) and presentation applications (Power-point and Excel).  Elected by the students to be the teacher of the year.
Studies	Ph.D. in Business Administration (Expected Graduation Date: August 2012 – GPA: 3.7) HEC Montreal M.Sc. in Computer Science (June 2002 – GPA: 3.6) Concordia University Research Project Title: “Solving ordinary differential equations application and performance” (Advisor: Dr. Peter Grogono). The purpose of the research project is to study performance of mathematical operations in software applications. Solving ordinary differential equations (ODE) is the main target to accomplish. Previous work in this field was done but there have not been intensive efforts to optimize performance. The research aims on designing an application that can solve general differential equations using certain algorithms (ODE solvers) and developing the system in different languages in order to find the best solution that maximizes the application’s performance. The outcome of the research is a framework for mathematical applications, a useful system that solves ordinary differential equations, and a performance study of the application. Bachelor in Computer Science (June 1996) Lebanese American University
Languages	English French Arabic

Other information

Email address	mazen.el-masri@hec.ca
Skype	elmazmaz
Facebook	Elmaz
Twitter	MazenMasri
Telephone (Work)	(514) 340-6000 x 2553
Telephone (Cellphone)	(514) 909-6675