Information systems development as situated socio-technical change: a process approach

Since today's enterprises must constantly adapt to rapidly changing external environment, it is necessary to be able to deal with variation and changing conditions in information systems (IS) development. This may be achieved by the use of multifractal IS development methodologies. Fractal approaches to some extent have already been tested in adaptive enterprise development, adaptive manufacturing systems development, and software development. This suggests that multifractal IS development, on the one hand, is appropriate, because the information system should properly reflect the business enterprise (in this case a fractal one) and, on the other hand, it is possible, because some elements of it have already been implemented. Development of multifractal IS aims at managing relative completeness by relative simplicity that has to be discovered in different subsystems that influence the development of the information system. This, in essence, implies the need of thorough analysis an understanding of business structures and processes to discover patterns useful for the identification of fractal features. Currently, only some guidelines for development of multifractal IS are derived from reported experiences of fractal systems development and the use of fractal approaches in other domains.

Objectives . Agile methodologies are crucial in software engineering and information systems (IS) development. However, traditional training methods can struggle to convey abstract theoretical concepts effectively and may lead to reduced engagement. We propose that combining several learning methodologies and incorporating serious games and gamification strategies in training can offer a more innovative and engaging approach to improve comprehension. This article outlines a game-based learning strategy designed to instruct information systems students in agile development. Our approach is rooted in active learning principles, incorporating methodologies such as problem/project-based learning, microlearning, collaborative learning, and learning by doing. The course design unfolds in two phases. Initially, participants delve into short, serious games that vividly demonstrate theoretical concepts, followed by brief moments of theoretical exposition. In the subsequent phase, participants apply all the knowledge they have acquired through an extensive project. To illustrate and evaluate the overall process, this approach was implemented to teach Scrum in several training courses. Participants . The participants in this study were information technology and systems students at different academic levels. Study Method . The research model adopted in this work is based on the Design Science Research (DSR) method. Adhering to the DSR method, the study advanced through distinct phases: recognizing the challenge of engaging Agile Development education, formulating a solution with a course design that blends game-based learning and diverse learning methodologies, developing the course artifact, practically implementing it with Scrum with several groups in different contexts, and assessing its effectiveness using pre- and post-course quizzes. The course aimed to instruct participants in agile methods within information system development. Findings . Feedback from the courses was clearly positive, with participants expressing a preference for the proposed game-based approach over traditional expository lecture methods. Pre- and post-course knowledge quizzes revealed a noteworthy increase in correct answers and overall scores in the end. Conclusions . The novelty lies in an integrated approach that combines multiple active learning methodologies—such as game-based learning, microlearning, collaborative learning, project-based learning, and learning by doing—to facilitate the comprehension of theoretical concepts through practical application.

Many organisations in the West have undertaken business process reengineering initiatives with the aim of improving organisational performance. These initiatives inevitably involve redesign and alterations to the existing information systems that support the business processes. The implications for information systems and how an organization’s existing systems can evolve to support a reengineering project is an area, which has been relatively under researched. Although it is recognised that information systems design and development is difficult in BPR environments, there is little overlap between research in BPR and systems analysis, so that there is no shared vocabulary and perspective. This paper examines how information systems redesign can be integrated with business process reengineering through a review of relevant literature and empirical research.Keywordsbusiness process reengineering (BPR)information systems & technology (IS/IT)legacy systems

This chapter examines the causes of failure in a Web-based information system development project and finds out how complexity can lead a project towards failure. Learning from an Information System Development Project (ISDP) failure plays a key role in the long-term success of any organization desirous of continuous improvement via evaluation and monitoring of its information systems (IS) development efforts. This study reports on a seemingly simple (but only deceptively so) failed ISDP to inform the reader about the various complexities involved in ISDPs in general, and in developing countries in particular. An existing framework from contemporary research is adopted to map the complexities found in the project under study and the critical areas, which lead to the decreased reliability and failure in Web-based information system development, are highlighted.

All approaches to information systems and software development assume lifecycle models, which have a significant impact upon the perspective adopted for design and development. In recognition of the limitations of conventional software engineering lifecycles, the Information Systems (IS) community has focused upon gaining recognition of organizational and human issues in systems design. The Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) community has also tried to introduce user-centered practices into software engineering, but its success has been limited because it has augmented existing lifecycle models that are document or risk-driven. Yet, user-centered design can only be fully realized through the adoption of a user-centered model of the information systems lifecycle as the basis for developing ICT-based systems. This paper explains how several of the limitations of current IS and HCI theory and practice can be overcome by modeling development lifecycles in terms of social transformation. The paper then presents an information systems development lifecycle based upon social transformation and illustrates how a user-centered software development lifecycle can be integrated into the IS development process.

Our research addresses the problem of managing and coordinating information resources used in information system (IS) development. In our approach, we argue that conceptual specifications of information systems are the fundamental constituents of information resources. Accordingly, the first challenge of the research is to manage and coordinate conceptual specifications used in IS development. For this reason, an System upon Information Systems (ISIS) is proposed to manage and coordinate information resources based on conceptual specifications of information systems. An ISIS is actually a typical information system, which supports other information systems in development. Correspondingly, this thesis presents a conceptual framework for building and managing the ISIS. This conceptual framework describes how to identify, modularize, manage, represent, and coordinate conceptual specifications used in IS development. In conclusion, the thesis ends with the current results, present works and remaining research issues.

In this paper, the role of participation within the domains of information system (IS) research and social development is analyzed. Specifically, we examine how the process of IS development, and the IS itself, can reflect and shape the status of social development. Traditionally, participatory design (PD) research in IS has focused on business contexts in the Western world, with minimal application to developing country settings, especially in the context of social development. This paper seeks to contribute to developing these understandings and bases its analysis on a case study of a community-based health IS in South Africa. The case study involved the design and development of a community-based child health IS in a rural area of South Africa. Nationally, the formal district health IS in South Africa includes data only on those people who access health services through the health facilities. The premise behind developing a community-based child health IS was to include all the people living in that district in the district health IS. Analysis of the case study reveals three ways in which traditional PD needs reconceptualization. First, it is not only the users of the IS who should participate, but also those individuals who are affected by the IS, even when those individuals have no direct interaction with the system itself. Second, whereas there is some recognition in PD literature of the need for the participation of people at different levels vertically distributed within an organization, there has been little recognition of the value of involving actors outside the organization or sector. Third, the capacity of the users and those impacted by the system needs to be developed to ensure effective participation in the IS design and development processes. These three approaches to PD in IS, whose purpose is to contribute to social development, are essential components of a participatory strategy. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The challenges of information systems (IS) development have changed significantly in the past 15 years. From a situation where the main problem was to build stable systems based on a requirements specification, the IS project manager now faces challenges of integration; for example: how to integrate a new information system into large existing information infrastructures and unstable business processes? Building on a socio-technical perspective, four types of integration were identified and analyzed: external and internal stakeholder integration, and internal and external technical integration. A longitudinal case study of an e-business development project in the airline industry identified and highlighted some managerial challenges of integration. Findings include: Internal technical and (to some extent) stakeholder integration is well supported by traditional project management techniques and software engineering frameworks, such as the Rational Unified Process (RUP). However, the challenges of external stakeholder and technical integration is underrated in IS development research, and not well supported in RUP.

The challenges of information systems (IS) development have changed significantly in the past 15 years. From a situation where the main problem was to build stable systems based on a requirements specification, the IS project manager now faces challenges of integration; for example: how to integrate a new information system into large existing information infrastructures and unstable business processes? Building on a socio-technical perspective, four types of integration were identified and analyzed: external and internal stakeholder integration, and internal and external technical integration. A longitudinal case study of an e-business development project in the airline industry identified and highlighted some managerial challenges of integration. Findings include: Internal technical and (to some extent) stakeholder integration is well supported by traditional project management techniques and software engineering frameworks, such as the Rational Unified Process (RUP). However, the challenges of external stakeholder and technical integration is underrated in IS development research, and not well supported in RUP.

As the significant success of business enterprises, information system development becomes IT managers' concern to keep the balance between business and information system. The information system has an important role to deliver advantages to the business enterprises. To keep maintain these issues, information system should be developed to innovate the business process. However, in developing an information system, the information system process improvement may obtain the possibility of information system development failures. Therefore, to avoid the failures in implementing information systems there are some important factors. Those factors are called critical success factors (CSF). Therefore, this study observes the critical success factors (CSF) in information system development (ISD) projects. This systematic literature review discusses critical success factors in information system development. The method section determines the research question. It also describes how to collect and filter the data. The order of this research written is according to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses Checklist or also known as PRISMA Checklist. Therefore, to collect and filter the data, this systematic literature review uses Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses method or also known as PRISMA method. There were 20 papers selected to help this research based on the filtering papers due to PRISMA flow diagram. Most of those papers are discussing information system development and the rest are about factors of information system development. The result section has two parts, which are study characteristics and study results. This systematic literature review concluded that there are five critical success factors in developing information system projects. Those critical success factors are people, project, organization, knowledge, and expertise. Those critical success factors are also supported by several items of each factor. Therefore, the output of this research is expected to satisfy the information system development projects to meet the organizations' need and reduce also possibly avoid the failures in information system development projects.

Currently, the development of organizational information systems remains a complex task. Final software product quality often does not match expectations. The existence of organizational models is the first step to reduce complexity in the development of information systems. Within the life cycle of an information system, activities are still very dependent in quality, time, and costs on the human resource skills that staff them. The existence of automated mechanisms to transform client requirements into characteristics of running systems would bring added value to the resulting software product, either in product quality and time perspectives. In this proposal, the manipulation of requirements must be done using an understandable model for both software engineers and business process experts. This model should be used to automatically reshape the running organizational information system and be the basis for an automated information system generation. The usage of such mechanism can be done during a development project, but also after its implementation where standalone process experts could change the organization model, knowing that the changes, in an automated mode, would be transferred into the running system.

This study examines behavioral accounting on the basis of the theory of information systems. Respondents in this study were 200 respondents of the users of information systems in medium enteprise in East Kalimantan. The results indicate that user participation in the development of information systems influence user satisfaction in information system development, although the magnitude of the effect is 9%. The result indicates that user - developer communication, task complexcity, system complexcity, user influence, organisation culture moderated the effect of user’s participation on user’s satisfaction in information system development. It was also found that top management support acts as independent predictor on user’s satisfaction in information system development. User-developer communication having positive effetc on user’s satisfaction in information system development. User influence having negative effect on user’s satisfaction in information system development. Task complexcity and system coplexcity having negative effect on user’s satisfaction in information system development. Organizational culture having positive effect on user’s satisfaction in information system development. User’s satisfaction having positif effect on user’s performance in information system development.Keywords: User’s Participation, Top Management Support, Communication User-Developer, Task Complexity, System Complexity, User’s Influence, Organizational Cul-ture, User’s Satisfaction and User’s Performance.

Contemporary information systems (IS) development within organizations involves multiple interconnected systems, a variety of development practices and also outsources responsibilities to third parties. It hence introduces new threats, new vulnerabilities and in consequence new security problems for the IS. In this paper we propose a theoretical framework to facilitate the implementation of secure IS into this contemporary, particularly complex, organisational environment. We start our study by examining organisational and systems development issues, such as the involved stakeholders and their security requirements. We then relate this theory to practice by identifying all those concepts that materialise the stakeholders' security understanding to specific security objectives and the tools in which they are manifested. Finally, we inspect various published cases in order to examine the use of these tools within organisations, so as to realise our theoretical design and prescribe its further use.

The competitive nature of today's business environment has made it necessary for educators to inculcate in our students a sense of innovativeness in Information Systems (IS) development. While working on real-world projects presents the most ideal opportunity to achieve this objective, it is not always possible to gain access to them. This paper proposes how the case study pedagogy using problem-based learning can be synergized with project-based learning to provide a feasible alternative. An integrative research model based on the IS development methodology acceptance theories is used to investigate the usefulness, satisfaction and acceptance of the proposed business innovation process.

Extended Selected Best Paper from the paper presented in the V Conference of the Italian Chapter of AIS