Contingent Information Systems Development

Situated approaches based on project contingencies are becoming more and more an important research topic for information systems development organizations. The Information Services Organization, which was investigated, has recognized that it should tune its systems development approaches to the specific situation. A model has been developed, dealing with the matching between prevailing contingency factors and the preconditions of already existing situated approaches. Furthermore, a generic process model for systems development, including the information systems operations stage, is proposed. This model makes it possible to derive from it specific systems development strategies. A number of basic development strategies, specific for the Information Services Organization, are described. Preconditions, specific for this organization, are added to the standard situated approaches

Identifying Project Contingency Factors for Situational Project Management Method Engineering

While several researchers and practitioners stated that project management methods should fit the project context, engineering a project management method to fit a specific situation has not yet received much attention in the literature. Only recently, some studies have introduced Project Contingency Theory (PCT) and suggested various project contingency factors that could guide method selection or engineering. However, a thorough overview of contingency factors lacking. Remarkably, in information systems (IS) development research, a rich tradition of situational method engineering exists. IS development contingency factors have been studied and linked to engineering requirements for IS development methods. It is the objective of this paper to initiate a similar tradition for Situational Project Management Method Engineering. A first step needed is to develop a comprehensive list of project contingency factors. In this paper we built such a set of 28 project contingency factors. We elicited these factors from both theory and practice. We conducted a systematic literature review to analyze theories in both project management and IS literature. We obtained input from practice through semi-structured interviews with project managers. We merged the contingency factors found in theory and practice and described each factor using the literature surveyed and the interview data. Quotes from the interviews with project managers are given to illustrate the contingency factor and its impact on project management practices. Furthermore, we provide a comparison of the contingency factors found to the notion of critical success factors. The 28 contingency factors presented are grounded in practice and theory and provide a solid foundation for further research towards Situational Project Management Method Engineering

The role of knowledge capturing during the elicitation of system requirements in a high-reliability organisation in South Africa

The most important strategic asset in an organisation is the knowledge its employees possesses. As a result, organisations are looking at various methods to retain and understand this knowledge in order to use as competitive advantage. Requirements elicitation is the process where problems that need to be solved, are uncovered. The information that is gathered needs to be analysed, interpreted, modelled and validated before it can be utilised for Information Systems (IS) development. The development of an IS requires access to knowledge, whether the knowledge comes in an explicit or tacit form. Explicit knowledge is knowledge that can be expressed in words or numbers and can be easily articulated. Tacit knowledge is rooted in an individual’s experience and has a personal quality; it is more difficult to articulate and communicate. The extraction of explicit knowledge can be made available with great ease, but there is some degree of tacit knowledge that cannot be encapsulated unequivocally and requires intervention to capture and apply knowledge. The implementation of an IS follows a System Development Life-cycle (SDLC) approach. One of the critical activities in this process is the elicitation of requirements from stakeholders in this interactive process. Elicitation of requirements includes gathering information from users, validating and capturing the information to develop a requirements specification that will be used to develop an IS. The purpose of this interpretive case study was to understand how knowledge can be captured effectively during requirements elicitation in the context of a high-reliability organisation (HRO). An HRO is an organisation that can perform optimally without accidents and have low safety rates over time. An analysis of requirements elicitation in the literature was produced and an online questionnaire was distributed to employees at a HRO in South Africa in order to collect data. Upon analysis of the findings, it was established that employees of this HRO has long tenure at the organisation and is willing to share knowledge. It was also observed that the standard system requirement process does not cater for knowledge capturing as employees at this HRO environment often act based on their own experiences and tacit knowledge rather than explicit knowledge. There is a need to improve on the requirements elicitation process by providing an opportunity for the capturing of this knowledge in the requirements. The document produced after the requirements elicitation, is the software requirements specification document and a recommendation is made that this artefact should cater for the capturing of knowledge.Dissertation (MCom)--University of Pretoria, 2017.InformaticsMComUnrestricte

Unravelling methodologies: a theory building approach

Problem solving methodologies in IS are numerous, varied in objectives and scope, and commonly suffer consequences of deviation and rejection. This research investigates the essence of methodologies in order to understand and to address these consequences. In this thesis, methodologies are treated in a broad sense in order to arrive at a generalisable solution. An integrated research framework was constructed to pursue the solution. The framework is based on my adopted ontological, epistemological and methodological assumptions. The research is considered as an interpretivist single case study using qualitative research methods. A holistic Information Security Methodology was selected for in-depth study. Data were collected from various sources, but primarily from focus groups using 18 participants representing 11 organisations. Data were also collected from the developer of the methodology and two other organisations who were implementing it. Data analysis was based on a grounded approach to arrive at a substantive theory representing a conception of an ideal methodology as perceived by these practitioners. The use of the Hermeneutic circle and the purposely constructed Interrogative Framework were the essential tools for analysis. This conception is believed to hold some of the key factors for reducing the common problems of deviation and rejection of methodologies. The proposed theory is the main contribution of this research, which can be used as a foundation theory to construct and evaluate methodologies. The theory also has been used to propose extensions to existing theories. The core theory consists of basic elements and attributes. Other constructs were also developed to be used as contexts to the theory. In totality these findings provide a rich sphere to examine and understand methodologies