13.1

Revision

Semester 2, 2005

IMS3230 - Information Systems Development Practices

13.2

what is systems development?

the activities of systems development

ISDMs as a structure for development

the role of the system developer

the organisational context

Revision

13.3

implicit and explicit assumptions about:

- the nature of human organisations

- the nature of the systems development process

- the role of the systems developer

as embodied in specific SDMs

frameworks for comparison of SDMs paradigms for understanding SDMs

Revision

13.4

• the technical expert?

• the facilitator?

• the management change agent?

• the collaborative agent?

the role of the system developer:

Revision

13.5

“A collection of procedures, techniques, tools and documentation aids which will help the systems developers in their efforts to implement a new information system. A methodology will consist of phases, themselves consisting of sub-phases, which will guide the systems developers in their choice of the techniques that might be appropriate at each stage of the project and also help them plan, manage, control and evaluate information systems projects”

Avison and Fitzgerald (2003) p 20 a “methodical approach” to information systems

development “used by one or more persons to produce a specification” or “design product” by performing a “design process”

Olle et al (1991) pp 1-2

What is a system development methodology?

13.6

a methodology must have an underlying philosophy, otherwise it is just a method:

- a method:

a prescribed set of tasks

- a technique:

a way of doing a particular activity in the systems development process

- a tool:

usually automated tools to help systems development

Avison and Fitzgerald (2003)

Revision

13.7

Evolution of information systems development methodologies

• the traditional systems development approach: (SDLC)

• structured approaches of the 1970s

• data-oriented methodologies of the 1980s

• strategic planning approaches (mid 1970s and 1980s)

• soft approaches (SSM, ETHICS)

• the 1980s: information systems development

prototyping, CASE tools, database systems, decentralisation,

user participation, end user computing

• the 1990s: information systems development

object-oriented approaches, reuse, outsourcing,

enterprise planning systems (ERP), BPR, data warehouses,

Internet and intranets, multimedia

13.8

the “hard” or “engineering” approaches:

• a functionalist view: tasks, products

• objectives are primarily technical

• a methodology is an abstraction, a philosophy on which to base action

• a “task list”: prescriptive, normative

Revision

13.9

the “soft” approaches:

• interpretivist: a subjective view of reality

• the broad socio-organisational context

• systems development is a social process

• ill-structured, complex problem situations

Revision

13.10

Frameworks: for describing the concept of a methodology

e.g. the meta-model of Olle et al (1991)

for describing a specific methodology

e.g. the system lifecycle

for comparing and / or evaluating methodologies

e.g. feature analyses

analyses of results of using methodologies

Revision

13.11

• Structured Analysis

• Information Engineering

• Soft Systems Methodology

• ETHICS

• SSADM

information systems development methodologies:

Revision

13.12

Analyst Methodology

Situation

using a methodology:

Avison and Wood-Harper (1990)

Revision

13.13

the organisational context:

organisational culture - role, influence, management introducing and managing change -

new information systems, new information technologies

targets for change, resistance to change a model of the change process

Revision

13.14

user participation JAD/JRP sessions prototyping CASE technology reuse rapid application development outsourcing application packages/ ERP systems

ways of improving quality and/or productivity:

Revision

13.15

Revision topics

Role and purpose of ISDMs; benefits and limitations User participation Prototyping CASE tools RAD Organisational change Outsourcing Application packages Evaluating ISDMs An ISDM focusing on technological dimension and ISDM

focusing on human dimension