Selecting the right method for the right project

The development of information systems is constantly changing. As a background of the change, there is almost a traditional problem about the high failure rates of information systems development (ISD) projects, but it is no longer the only change-driving force. The role of information systems and their strategic significance has increased considerably due digitalization. This has happened also in the areas of business, which have not been traditionally thought as IT-oriented. Furthermore, the new agile development methods have forced ISD clients to take more responsibility for ISD than before. In practice, this means that completely outsourcing ISD is not as sensible nor as simple as before. ISD clients who acquire information systems must be aware of the different ISD methods and be able to compare and choose the most suitable for the business situation and the objectives in question. ISD method selection is rarely studied, and the majority of publications concentrate on different selection criteria relating to the ISD method choice without a clear selection model. Only a few ISD method selection models were found in the literature. Furthermore, the earlier ISD method selection models are restricted by two factors: firstly, the recommendations behind the prior ISD selection models do not correspond to today’s thoughts about the ISD methods; secondly, prior ISD selection models concentrate only on the properties of the ISD pro-jects, and attention is not really given to the business environment or the business to be developed. In a situation like this, it was considered necessary to develop and study an ISD selection framework which takes the business development and business environment into account as well. Furthermore, it was seen as necessary to study both the customer and supplier practices related to the ISD method choice. The objective was to understand the present situation and estimate how the developed ISD selection framework could be utilized in the future. The study was carried out in several stages. Firstly, two unsuccessful ISD projects were studied in the case study, and it was found that the ISD method used in the projects did not correspond to the properties of the business environment in either case. After that, a contingency theory–motivated ISD selection framework was developed, and a systematic literature review was conducted to study earlier ISD method selection criteria and compare them with the developed ISD method selection framework. In the next stage, expert interviews were done. Altogether, 31 ISD experts working on the borderline between the IS sup-plier and client were interviewed and asked their opinions on existing ISD method selection practices by both the client and the supplier. Furthermore, the experts were asked for their opinions on the recommendations of earlier ISD method selection models and on the developed ISD method selection framework. As a result of the study, it can be stated that the developed ISD method framework covers both the previous ISD method selection criteria, which mainly concentrates on ISD project factors, and the business environment factors. Whereas the majority of the interviewed experts considered the developed ISD method selection framework useful, the recommendations of earlier ISD method selection models were regarded as outdated. Furthermore, it was noticed that in IS client organizations, there was almost no discussion about the ISD methods, and in the supplier organizations, the discussion was very rare. Any systematic projectspecific ISD method selection practice had not been perceived in either organizations. Supplier organizations can justify their reasons for favouring a certain ISD method with the bounded rationality, whereas the operation of customer companies doing (or not doing) the ISD method selection seems to be filling the features of functional stupidity. In the future, it is important to study how to plant the ISD method selection as part of the starting stage of the ISD project. In addition, the developed ISD method selection framework should be tested in the practice.Tietojärjestelmien kehittäminen on jatkuvassa murroksessa. Muutoksen taustalla on jo perinteiseksi muodostunut ongelma tietojärjestelmäprojektien epäonnistumisesta, mutta se ei ole enää ainoa syy. Digitalisaation myötä tietojärjestelmien rooli ja strateginen merkitys on kasvanut huomattavasti myös sellaisilla liiketoiminta-alueilla, joita ei ole ajateltu IT-orientoituneina. Lisäksi uudet ketterät tietojärjestelmien kehittämismenetelmät osallistavat tietojärjestelmäprojektien asiakkaat, jotka joutuvat entistä vastuullisempaan asemaan. Käytännössä tämä kaikki merkitsee sitä, että tietojärjestelmien kehittämisen täydellinen ulkoistaminen ei enää ole yhtä mielekästä, eikä myös yhtä yksinkertaista kuin ennen. Tässä tilanteessa myös tietojärjestelmiä hankkivan asiakkaan pitää tietää erilaisista kehittämismenetelmistä ja kyetä vertailemaan ja valitsemaan kyseiseen liiketoimintatilanteeseen ja tavoitteisiin parhaiten sopiva kehittämismenetelmä. Tietojärjestelmien kehittämismenetelmien valintaa on tutkittu vähän ja suurin osa löydetyistä julkaisuista keskittyy listaamaan erilaisia menetelmävalintaan liittyviä kriteerejä. Varsinaisia tietojärjestelmien kehitysmenetelmien valintamalleja on esitetty vain muutamia. Aiempien valintamallien käyttökelpoisuutta rajoittaa kaksi tekijää: ensinnäkin mallien taustalla olevat olettamukset eivät välttämättä täsmää tämän päivän ajatuksiin kehittämismenetelmistä, ja toisekseen valintamallit keskittyvät tietojärjestelmien kehittämisprojektien ominaisuuksiin, kehitettävää liiketoimintaa tai liiketoimintaympäristöä ei aikaisemmissa valintamalleissa juurikaan huomioida. Tilanteen ollessa tämä kehitimme ja tutkimme tietojärjestelmän kehittämismenetelmien valintamallia, joka ottaa huomioon myös samaan aikaan tapahtuvan liiketoiminnan kehittämisen ja liiketoimintaympäristön. Lisäksi tutkimme tietojärjestelmän kehittämismenetelmien valintaan liittyviä käytäntöjä sekä asiakkaan että toimittajan näkökulmasta. Tavoitteena oli ymmärtää menetelmävalinnan nykytilannetta ja arvioida miten valintamallia voisi jatkossa hyödyntää. Tutkimus toteutettiin useammassa vaiheessa. Ensimmäiseksi tapaustutkimuksin tutkittiin kahta epäonnistunutta tietojärjestelmäkehitysprojektia, ja havaittiin että kummassakaan tapauksessa valittu tietojärjestelmän kehittämismalli ei vastannut liiketoimintaympäristön tarpeita. Sen jälkeen kehitimme kontingenssiteoreettisen tietojärjestelmän kehitysmenetelmän valintamallin, jota verrattiin systemaattisella kirjallisuuskatsauksella löydettyihin aikeisempiin valintasuosituksiin. Vertailun jälkeen haastateltiin 31 asiantuntijaa. Haastatteluilla selvitettiin nykyisiä tietojärjestelmän kehitysmenetelmien valintaan liittyviä käytäntöjä, niin tietojärjestelmäasiakkaan kuin toimittajan näkökulmasta. Lisäksi asiantuntijoilta kysyttiin heidän mielipidettään aiempien valintamallien taustalla olevista väittämistä sekä nyt kehitetystä valintamallista. Tulos on, että ehdottamamme kontingessimalli kattaa sekä aiemmat, projektinominaisuuksiin keskittyvät valintakriteerit, että myös liiketoimintaympäristön epävarmuuteen liittyvät tekijät. Suurin osa haastatelluista asiantuntijoista (23 vastaajaa 31 haastatellusta) piti ehdotettua valintamallia käyttökelpoisena. Aiempien valintamallien taustalla olevat väittämät koettiin ajastaan jälkeen jääneiksi. Lisäksi havaittiin, että asiakasyrityksissä keskustelua tietojärjestelmän kehittämismenetelmistä ei käytännössä ollut juuri lainkaan, eikä myöskään suurimmassa osassa toimittajayrityksiä. Mitään säännöllistä projektikohtaista valintakäytäntöä ei kummissakaan yrityksissä oltu havaittu. Haastateltujen asiantuntijoiden mukaan kehittämisprojekteissa kuitenkin pääsääntöisesti käytetään jotain tietojärjestelmän kehittämismenetelmää, ja syyt menetelmän käyttöön vaihtelevat. Toimittajayritysten syyt tietyn menetelmän suosimiseen ovat pääosin perusteltavissa rajoitetulla rationaalisuudella (bounded rationality), kun taas asiakasyritysten toiminta menetelmän valinnassa näyttää täyttävän toiminnallisen typeryyden (functional stupidity) tunnuspiirteet. Jotta kehitetystä mallista tulee asiakasyrityksille hyödyllinen käytännön työkalu, on seuraavaksi syytä tutkia miten tietojärjestelmän kehittämismenetelmän valinta saadaan osaksi projektin käynnistämisvaiheen tehtäviä. Tärkeää on myös testata nyt esitetyn kontingenssimallin toimivuutta käytännön tilanteissa

Method Engineering as Design Science

In this paper, we motivate, devise, demonstrate, and evaluate an approach for the research-based development of information systems development methods (ISDMs). This approach, termed “method engineering as design science” (ME-DS), emerged from the identified need for scholars to develop ISDMs using proper research methods that meet the standards of both rigor and relevance. ISDMs occupy a position of central importance to information systems development and scholars have therefore invested extensive resources over the years in developing such methods. The method engineering (ME) discipline has developed different frameworks and methods to guide such development work and, for that purpose, they are well-suited. Still, there remains a need for applications and evaluations of ISDMs based on the demands for knowledge justification. Unfortunately, in many cases, scholars come up short with regard to how ISDMs are generated and empirically validated. While design science (DS) stresses knowledge justification, prominent DS approaches seem to be biased toward the development of IT artifacts, making this approach ill-suited for the development of method artifacts. We therefore propose eight principles that marry ME and DS, resulting in a process model with six activities to support research-based development of ISDMs. We demonstrate and evaluate ME-DS by assessing three existing research papers that propose ISDMs. These retrospectives show how ME-DS directs attention to certain aspects of the research process and provides support for future ISDM development

CoFeD: A visualisation framework for comparative quality evaluation

Evaluation for the purpose of selection can be a challenging task particularly when there is a plethora of choices available. Short-listing, comparisons and eventual choice(s) can be aided by visualisation techniques. In this paper we use Feature Analysis, Tabular and Tree Representations and Composite Features Diagrams (CFDs) for profiling user requirements and for top-down profiling and evaluation of items (methods, tools, techniques, processes and so on) under evaluation. The resulting framework CoFeD enables efficient visual comparison and initial short-listing. The second phase uses bottom-up quantitative evaluation which aids the elimination of the weakest items and hence the effective selection of the most appropriate item. The versatility of the framework is illustrated by a case study comparison and evaluation of two agile methodologies. The paper concludes with limitations and indications of further work

Fit to Context Matters – Selecting and Using Information Systems Development Methods to Develop Business in Digitalization Contexts

We ponder the relations of software, information systems (IS) and business development methods in the development of digital businesses and in the digitalization of extant businesses. We present our published IS development method (ISDM) framework and its development. The framework is used as the background to reason the relations between the three development layers of digitalization: software, IS and business. We then propose six highly potential areas of future research. In addition, we answer to two research questions also paving the way to future research: is the matching of IS and business development a reasonable proposition, and is the finding of extant literature true, according to which ISDMs are used limitedly in IS development work. We organized two workshops with 21 (14+7) participants to answer these questions. We detected yes and mixed answers. We contribute to research with the empirical findings and the proposed research areas

The Usefulness of the Recommendations Regarding the Information System Development Method Selection during the Era of Digitalization

The business criticality of information systems (IS) and their development (ISD) appear to have increased recently. Backsourcing, cosourcing and multisourcing of ISD are some of the consequences. They, in turn, extend the need for understanding how to select information systems development methods (ISDM). In this research, we first condensed the knowledge base of ISDM selection research into nine recommendations. We then interviewed 28 ISDM experts and asked them to evaluate how useful the extant ISDM selection recommendations of prior research are to IS user organizations. We discovered that most recommendations were perceived outdated and only limitedly useful. We finally contemplated that paying more attention to how ISDMs are used in business development contexts is a means to increase the usefulness of ISDM selection recommendations

The State of Empathy in Agile Information System Development Methodologies (ISDMs)

The planning fallacy highlights people’s propensity to underestimate project completion times leading to disastrous results. Yet this is only one out of more than a hundred cognitive biases known to affect people’s thinking processes. Beholden to these powerful biological mechanisms, practitioners must continually contend with these biases to create something greater than themselves, painting a picture of ISDs as a socially complex process of negotiation. Agile ISDMs acknowledges this social reality, and with its popularity, understanding the factors of successful human interaction is now more important than ever. Despite empathy’s central role in communication, a rigorous search of IS literature has surprisingly found no studies of it in Agile ISDMs. This paper contributes to IS research by pioneering an exploratory study on the state of empathy in Agile ISDMs, gathering data on the field towards the creation of an initial theory, setting the stage for a richer, more robust theorizing

Selection, Adaption and Use of IS and Business Development Methods in Digitalization Projects

As digitalization has a significant impact on all industries, it is important to examine how digitalization methods are selected and applied. For that, we conducted two-step research: first, a survey examining how the connection of IT and digital business management affects business development management, followed by digitalization project participant interviews. We can conclude that method selection is done rarely, and even if it is done, project participants are not always aware of it. In addition, although business development objectives were largely emphasized, business development methods were scarce. Instead of deploying systematic business development, it was easily left as a vague part of IS development. Quite often, projects (willingly or accidentally) utilized some kind of hybrid method, but its elements were not combined systematically. As one result, we propose a new kind of hybrid method evaluation tool to be used in the method selection phase

A Contingency Theory Motivated Framework to Select Information System Development Methods

Several change-driven (agile) information systems development (ISD) methods have been launched during the recent years. In addition to agile ISD methods it is still possible to succeed also with plan-driven ISD methods. To facilitate ISD method selections that maximize the probability of ISD project success we crafted and evaluated an ISD method selection framework based on the idea of matching the properties of ISD methods and the characteristics of the business contexts where ISD methods are used. We conducted a systematic literature search to evaluate whether the proposed framework is also able to capture the findings of prior ISD method selection research and to guide future empirical research. From over 1000 potential articles we identified 42 articles that address ISD method selection. We discovered that the proposed framework was able to explain the findings of prior research