Using Causal Mapping to Support Information Systems Development

Identifying what different stakeholders in a business need from Information Systems development has always been seen as problematic. There are numerous cases of failure as projects run over time, over budget, and, most significantly, do not meet the needs of the user population. Whilst having a structured design process can go some way towards reducing the potential of failure, these methodologies do not attend sufficiently to clarifying and agreeing objectives or to considering the social and cultural elements inherent in the ownership and adoption of any new system. Instigating an effective, and structured, dialogue between users, developers and, when appropriate, sponsors, is therefore a critical consideration. Linking user needs, as they see them, to the language of IS developers and vice versa is crucial. Both parties need ownership. This chapter focuses upon the use of causal mapping, supported where appropriate by special software, that facilitates the development of a shared understanding (of both business needs and IT opportunities) and through this common platform enables a negotiated and agreed outcome. The nature of the outcome invites translation to structured design processes.

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Bringing the Social and Organisational Issues into Information Systems Development

Socio-Technical and Human Cognition Elements of Information Systems ◽

10.4018/978-1-59140-104-9.ch001 ◽

2003 ◽

pp. 5-21 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

David Avison ◽

Trevor Wood-Harper

Keyword(s):

Information Systems ◽

Development Process ◽

Systems Development ◽

Information Systems Development ◽

The Social ◽

History Of ◽

Oriented Approach ◽

Contingency Approach

Multiview is a framework to support the information systems development process. It was formulated originally in 1985, but has been developed and changed since that time. It was originally defined to take into account the human and organisational aspects of information systems development, as the alternative methodologies of the time–and most since that time–took a very technology-oriented approach. Furthermore, it is a contingency approach, and again this compares with the alternative bureaucratic and prescriptive methodologies. In this chapter, we describe the history of Multiview, and we reflect on the experiences of using it in action in many organisations.

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Towards an Ontology for Information Systems Development—A Contextual Approach

Advances in Database Research - Contemporary Issues in Database Design and Information Systems Development ◽

10.4018/978-1-59904-289-3.ch001 ◽

2011 ◽

pp. 1-36 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Mauri Leppänen

Keyword(s):

Information Systems ◽

Systems Development ◽

Information Systems Development ◽

Shared Understanding ◽

Contextual Approach ◽

Representation Language

This chapter presents an ISD ontology, which aims to provide an integrated conceptualization of ISD through anchoring it upon a contextual approach. The ISD ontology is composed of concepts, relationships, and constraints referring to purposes, actors, actions, and objects of ISD. It is presented as a vocabulary with explicit definitions and in meta models in a UML-based ontology representation language. We believe that although not complete the ISD ontology can promote the achievement of a shared understanding of contextual aspects in ISD. It can be used to analyze and compare existing frameworks and meta models and as a groundwork for engineering new ISD methods, and parts thereof.

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Language Quality in Requirements Development: Tracing Communication in the Process of Information Systems Development

Journal of Information Technology ◽

10.1057/jit.2012.33 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 28 (3) ◽

pp. 198-223 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

Christoph Rosenkranz ◽

Marianne Corvera Charaf ◽

Roland Holten

Keyword(s):

Information Systems ◽

Systems Development ◽

Development Project ◽

Communication Process ◽

Information Systems Development ◽

Shared Understanding ◽

Language Quality ◽

Open Issue ◽

Requirements Development ◽

The Impact

Knowledge transfer, communication, and shared understanding between project stakeholders are important factors in requirements development and in the information systems development process. Nevertheless, the impact and analysis of language and linguistic communication during requirements development is still an open issue. In our research, we claim that requirements development depends on the ability to deal with language and communication issues in practice and reach shared understanding of requirements. We propose the concept of language quality as a suitable means for analyzing the emergence of coherent and meaningful requirements. By applying the thereby developed dimensions of language quality to a real information systems development project, we are able to obtain practice-grounded propositions to further evaluate the consequences of different actions on the interaction and communication process of stakeholders in requirements development.

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The use of structured design methods and tools for information systems development

Design Studies ◽

10.1016/0142-694x(89)90030-6 ◽

1989 ◽

Vol 10 (3) ◽

pp. 135-143

Author(s):

Alwyn H Jones

Keyword(s):

Information Systems ◽

Systems Development ◽

Design Methods ◽

Information Systems Development ◽

Structured Design ◽

Structured Design Methods

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The Discursive Structure of the Social-Technical Divide: The Example of Information Systems Development

The Sociological Review ◽

10.1111/j.1467-954x.1995.tb00603.x ◽

1995 ◽

Vol 43 (2) ◽

pp. 251-273 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Janet Rachel ◽

Steve Woolgar

Keyword(s):

Information Systems ◽

Social Relationships ◽

Systems Development ◽

Development Project ◽

Ethnographic Study ◽

Information Systems Development ◽

Moral Order ◽

Private Sphere ◽

Social Actions ◽

The Social

The social and technical are commonly defined in opposition to each other. Yet technology practitioners are often quite comfortable with the idea that the technical is constitutively social. Drawing on an ethnographic study of a computerised information systems development project, this paper examines various usages of notions of ‘technical’. Attempts to situate the study at the ‘technical core’ of the project were met with a series of rebuffs. ‘Technical’ talk is to be understood as a categorising device which does boundary work. Technical talk invokes and performs a disjunction between networks of social relationships and stipulates a moral order with associated norms for acceptance and transition. The difficulty of penetrating the intelligibility of technical talk is understandable as a struggle in familiarising oneself with the routine social actions of a separate community. In addition, the private sphere of the technical is often distanced in time. The costs involved in journeying into the future are analogous to those of penetrating alien cultures. Ideas of progress and advance are often associated with the invocation of ‘the technical’. These connote a notion of timing which reinforces the distance and difference of – and hence depicts the costs involved in penetrating – removed sets of social relationships. Technical a. Appropriate or peculiar to, or characteristic of, a particular art, science, profession, or occupation (OED).

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