IS Method Design for Knowledge Management Systems

Literature on information systems (IS) method design provides little guidance for constructing and validating IS related methods based on components of existing methods. Method engineering, including method characteristics framework and super method, is a methodology for constructing holistic new methods from existing ones, based on the elicitation and adaptation of components from the existing methods. However, while these methodologies focus on how to conceptualize, develop, adapt, and assemble new methods from existing method components, we believe that the newly formed methods need to be rigorously grounded in the field and hence should be iteratively developed and inductively validated based on empirical data. This paper proposes combining several grounded theory tools with methodologies of constructing new methods, for forming a comprehensive methodology for IS method design, so the methods created with it will be grounded. The new methodology is illustrated by designing a requirements engineering method for knowledge management systems

AN ARGUMENTATION-BASED DESIGN RATIONALE APPLICATION FOR REFLECTIVE PRACTICE

This study presents an argumentation-based design rationale application for supporting communication and reflection in design. The study employs a design science research methodology and contributes to research by investigating the design and evaluation of a software artefact, namely the Rationale Browser. Preliminary evaluation of the software artefact in an experiment indicates its usefulness and usability. We conclude that the artefact can be of particular relevance to both researchers and practitioners, by serving as a reflection and documentation tool in valu-sensitive, ethical or reflective design projects

From Method Fragments to Knowledge Units : Towards a Fine-Granular Approach

We argue that a failure to consider real-world artifacts which are involved in day-to-day ‘Information Systems Development’ activities as a key reason which renders approaches like method engineering inadequate to practice. We aim to reduce the abstraction and granularity of “method fragments” by re-envisioning them as ‘knowledge units’. By doing so, we hope to strike the right balance between the ‘fluid’ and the ‘institutional’ domains of knowledge that can be translated into practice with relative ease. We consider real-world ‘project templates’ used in information systems development as exemplars of ‘best practices’ accumulated from the past and develop a platform called ReKon, which consists of ‘fine-grain project template chunks’. We map these ‘knowledge units’ against broad project phases and tasks that potential users can combine as needed. These knowledge units are extracted from more than 1,200 real-world project templates made available for this research project by four leading IT consulting organizations. The paper briefly describes the theoretical foundations of the platform (Method Engineering and SECI Framework), followed by the process used for chunking and codification of the templates, and discusses results of formative evaluation of the ReKon platform. We discuss future directions for ReKon platform that require extending Nonaka and Takeuchi’s combination quadrant within the SECI model

Collaborative Practices in Information Systems Development: A Collective Reflection-in-Action Framework

With the growth of consumer-faced information systems (IS) applications, IS designers are increasingly moving from seeing their work as ìcapturing and automating requirementsî to seeing it as ìinnovation in product development.î The new metaphor engenders organizational practices targeted at fostering innovation. One such practice is the creation of professionally and organizationally diverse development teams with the goal of creatively combining individual competencies in the resultant product. This paper draws on the longitudinal field study of such a team in order to build a practice-based framework for understanding collaboration on IS development (ISD) projects. The framework depicts ISD as a collective reflection-in-action process that increasingly defines the product. The IS product is the result of participants iteratively challenging each other or following what has been already established on the project. Which action is taken is shaped by the status relations among professionally and organizationally diverse actors

Applying lessons learned from counselling : On nurturing relations in design projects

This paper elaborates on the personal relation between the facilitator and the participants in Social Practice Design. It is argued that such processes can not just be managed, but have to fostered in relatively free way, so that results can transcend expectations and more closely approach the actual possibilities. This is explained by aspects of Rogers\u27 theory on therapy. The paper aims to be an interesting and strong example of the critical need for a good relationship in facilitating design. By itself, such a conclusion would not be surprising, but some of its constituent aspects are detailed: the paper elaborates on the relevance of deploying focus and effort on personal relation, in interventions for organisational innovation. Supporting the establishment of sense making and trust with Social Practice Design (SPD) approaches is found to be of primary importance in an e-Government development project. Here regional employees user-design a computer-based aid for public tender editing – a tender configurator - with the support of facilitators. We address the structural problem with infra-structural measures including open conversations to promote shared understanding, and user design laboratories to promote concept emergence and learning, while practicing relation and trust building all along. Our constructivist approach renounces from the start to solve the governance problem within a narrow managerial perspective. The paper offers a demonstration of the mission critical relevance of the relational component in SPD, intertwined with the customary functional component, in resuming governance towards project success. This experience is far from a complete experiment. But a wealth of indications and partial results have been harvested on needs, opportunities, and practices, for promoting shared understanding and trust in the project, and letting emerge idiosyncratic solutions. We judge the quality of the SPD approach by three requirements (Baskerville and Myers 2004): a contribution to practice (the action), a contribution to research (the theory), the criteria by which to judge the research, and we show explicitly how the research in the case meets these criteria

Cargo Cults in Information Systems Development: a Definition and an Analytical Framework

Organizations today adopt agile information systems development methods (ISDM), but many do not succeed with the adoption process and in achieving desired results. Systems developers sometimes fail in efficient use of ISDM, often due to a lack of understanding the fundamental intentions of the chosen method. In many cases organizations simply imitate the behavior of others without really understanding why. This conceptual paper defines this phenomenon as an ISDM cargo cult behavior and proposes an analytical framework to identify such situations. The concept of cargo cults originally comes from the field of social anthropology and has been used to explain irrational, ritualistic imitation of certain behavior. By defining and introducing the concept in the field of information systems development we provide a diagnostic tool to better understand one of the reasons why ISDM adoption sometimes fail

Managing Evolutionary Method Engineering by Method Rationale

This paper explores how to integrate formal meta-models with an informal method rationale to support evolutionary (continuous) method development. While the former provides an exact and computer-executable specification of a method, the latter enables concurrent learning, expansion, and refinement of method use (instances of meta-models) and meta-models (evolution of method specifications). We explain the need for method rationale by observing the criticality of evolving method knowledge in helping software organizations to learn, as well as by the recurrent failure to introduce rigid and stable methods. Like a design rationale, a method rationale establishes a systematic and organized trace of method evolution. Method rationale is located at two levels of type-instance hierarchy depending on its type of use and the scope of the changes traced. A method construction rationale garners a history of method knowledge evolution as part of the method engineering process, which designs and adapts the method to a given organizational context. A method use rationale maintains knowledge of concrete use contexts and their history and justifies further method deployment in alternative contexts, reveals limitations in its past use, and enables sharing of method use experience. The paper suggests how a method rationale helps share knowledge of methods between method users and engineers, explores how method engineers coordinate the evolution of the existing method base through it, and suggests ways to improve learning through method rationale

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