Differences in Information Systems Development and Evolution Practice between the Local and Governmental Public Sector

We have in earlier work reported differences between how public and private Norwegian organizations are able to use time on value adding activities in their work on IT. Using responses to the ‘IT i Praksis’ – surveys done by Rambøll in 2021, we in this paper look upon differ-ences between local (municipalities) and governmental agencies. ‘IT i praksis’ is distributed to Norwegian public organizations, and the overall response rate is around 45-50%, although not all respondents answer all questions. The data presented in this paper is based on re-sponses from 255 public organizations, with 176 municipalities, and 79 public organizations on national or regional level that have re-sponded. Overall, the investigation confirms the results from earlier investigations when it comes to maturity of practice in public sector and how this might influence their ability to have time available for value added IT-activities. In this investigation we also find differ-ences within public sector, with municipalities scoring worse on sev-eral parameters for successful management and evolution of IT

Managing The Full Erp Life-Cycle: Considerations Of Maintenance And Support Requirements And It Governance Practice As Integral Elements Of The Formula For Successful Erp Adoption

Companies adopting enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems have often focused primarily on implementation-related factors while neglecting those of post-implementation. As a result, the usefulness and operation of the ERP systems, once installed, are compromised. This research adopted a case study approach to demonstrate that ERP adoption efforts that fail to pay attention to post- implementation requirements (especially those relevant to maintenance and support (M&S)) from an early stage in the project lifecycle will face dire consequences. It points out that poor planning and management of M&S services can imperil the normal operations of an ERP system and the daily activities of a business. With the life span of ERP systems getting shorter, sound M&S practices can extend their life and create a stable system platform to support efficient and effective business operations. M&S issues deserve to be considered as integral elements among the critical success factors (CSF) of ERP adoption projects. In other words, ERP success requires a full lifecycle perspective to be taken by adopting companies. With lessons having been learned from the mistakes in the first project, the company in this case study revamped its ERP implementation second time out, with due consideration being given to M&S strategies and practices from project initiation onward in order to realize a stable, usable, and maintainable system. The case study explores and identifies the critical success factors (CSF) of ERP adoption, and shows that M&S must be included as a key element from the outset and throughout the system lifecycle. Our findings capture a great deal of experience for any ERP adopting companies to follow in order to avoid learning costly lessons both in implementation and subsequent M&S throughout the lifespan of the system. A set of propositions is also presented for academic researcher to consider in future ERP research endeavors

Work distribution, methodology and technology for ISD and maintenance : Trends over the last 30 years

The information systems we see around us today are at first sight very different from those that were developed 30 years ago. On the other hand, it seems that we are still struggling with many of the same problems, such as late projects and unfilled customer demands. In this article we present selected data from survey investigations performed by us in 1993, 1998, and 2003 among Norwegian organisations on how they conduct information systems development and maintenance. The investigations looks on many of the same areas as earlier investigations e.g. by Lientz and Swanson in the late 1970’, thus we are able to report on some tendencies of the development in the last 30 years. A major finding is that even if we witness large changes in the implementation technology and methods used, a number of aspects such as overall percentage of time used for maintaining and evolving systems in production compared to time used for development is remarkably stable. The same can be said about the rate of replacement, around 50% of ‘new’ systems to be developed are replacement systems. On the other hand, since we have more complex infrastructures supporting the information systems, more and more of the resources are used for other tasks such as operations and usersupport. Less and less time is available for providing new information systems support in organisationThe past and the future of information systems: 1976-2006 and beyondRed de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Animating the evolution of software

The use and development of open source software has increased significantly in the last decade. The high frequency of changes and releases across a distributed environment requires good project management tools in order to control the process adequately. However, even with these tools in place, the nature of the development and the fact that developers will often work on many other projects simultaneously, means that the developers are unlikely to have a clear picture of the current state of the project at any time. Furthermore, the poor documentation associated with many projects has a detrimental effect when encouraging new developers to contribute to the software. A typical version control repository contains a mine of information that is not always obvious and not easy to comprehend in its raw form. However, presenting this historical data in a suitable format by using software visualisation techniques allows the evolution of the software over a number of releases to be shown. This allows the changes that have been made to the software to be identified clearly, thus ensuring that the effect of those changes will also be emphasised. This then enables both managers and developers to gain a more detailed view of the current state of the project. The visualisation of evolving software introduces a number of new issues. This thesis investigates some of these issues in detail, and recommends a number of solutions in order to alleviate the problems that may otherwise arise. The solutions are then demonstrated in the definition of two new visualisations. These use historical data contained within version control repositories to show the evolution of the software at a number of levels of granularity. Additionally, animation is used as an integral part of both visualisations - not only to show the evolution by representing the progression of time, but also to highlight the changes that have occurred. Previously, the use of animation within software visualisation has been primarily restricted to small-scale, hand generated visualisations. However, this thesis shows the viability of using animation within software visualisation with automated visualisations on a large scale. In addition, evaluation of the visualisations has shown that they are suitable for showing the changes that have occurred in the software over a period of time, and subsequently how the software has evolved. These visualisations are therefore suitable for use by developers and managers involved with open source software. In addition, they also provide a basis for future research in evolutionary visualisations, software evolution and open source development

Pursuing fit: a grounded theory of e-recruitment in Namibia – an integrated jobseeker and agency perspective

The purpose of this study was to identify the main concern of jobseekers and recruitment agencies in electronic recruitment (e-recruitment) and determine how it was resolved. The country of Namibia was chosen for the study because many of its jobseekers and recruitment agencies are adopting e-recruitment to overcome challenges in their recruitment context. In order to meet the purpose of the study, Classic Grounded Theory Methodology (classic-GTM) was used. Through the application of classic-GTM it emerged that jobseekers' and recruitment agencies' perspectives on e-recruitment are varied and shifting, which together with the dynamics in information technology bring many possibilities and fluidity of stakeholders' behaviour. Therefore, jobseekers and recruitment agencies are mainly concerned about Fit or lack thereof between their conceptualizations of Objects of Concern (namely information technology, jobseekers, job providers (recruitment agencies and employers) and jobs) in such a dynamic environment. Pursuing Fit emerged as the core variable (core category) representing how the participants continuously resolved their main concern. Two sub-categories constituting Pursuing Fit are Interpreting Fit and Positioning for Fit and they explain how stakeholders interpret e-recruitment concepts and position themselves and other Objects of Concern based on interpretation. Recruitment is likely to take place when Objects of Concern relate in a desirable (fitting) manner. The study's contribution to knowledge is through the theory of Pursuing Fit that suggests a systematic way of understanding e-recruitment and of conceptualizing information technology in e-recruitment to increase chances of recruitment. Implications common for both jobseekers and recruitment agencies are context awareness and flexibility. Context awareness allows stakeholders to interpret Objects of Concern based on the context and flexibility makes it possible to change from a previously held position. The study can be used as the foundation for research involving multiple stakeholders in e-recruitment. In conclusion, e-recruitment is a process of meaning creation in which stakeholders interpret concepts and based on the meanings relate the concepts with each other

Web information systems: A study of maintenance, change and flexibility

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Information Systems (IS’s) have provided organisations with huge efficiency gains and benefits over the years; however an outstanding problem that is yet to be successfully tackled is that of the troublesome maintenance phase. Consuming vast resources and thwarting business progression in a competitive global market place, system maintenance has been recognised as one of the key areas where IS is failing organisations. Organisations are too often faced with the dilemma of either replacement or the continual upkeep of an unwieldy system. The ability for IS’s to be able to adapt to exogenous influences is even more acute today than at any time in the past. This is due to IS’s namely, Web Information Systems (WIS’s) increasingly and continually having to accommodate the needs of organisations to interconnect with a plethora of additional systems as well as supporting evolving business models. The richness of the interconnectivity, functionalities and services WIS’s now offer are shaping social, cultural and economic behaviour on a truly global scale, making the maintenance of such systems and evermore pertinent issue. The growth and proliferation of WIS’s shows no sign of abating which leads to the conclusion that what some have termed as the ‘maintenance iceberg’ should not be ignored. The quandary that commercial organisations face is typically driven by two key aspects; firstly, systems are built on the cultural premise of using fixed requirements, with not enough thought or attention being paid to systems abilities to deviate from these requirements. Secondly, systems do not generally cope well with adapting to unpredictable change arising from outside of the organisations environment. Over the recent past, different paradigms, approaches and methods have attempted to make software development more predictable, controllable and adaptable, however, the benefits of such measures in relation to the maintenance dilemma have been limited. The concept of flexible systems that are able to cope with such change in an efficient manner is currently an objective that few can claim to have realised successfully. The primary focus of the thesis was to examine WIS post-development change in order to empirically substantiate and understand the nature of the maintenance phase. This was done with the intention to determine exactly ‘where’ and ‘how’ flexibility could be targeted to address these changes. This study uses an emergent analytical approach to identify and catalogue the nature of change occurring within WIS maintenance. However, the research framework design underwent a significant revision as the initial results indicated that a greater emphasis and refocus was required to achieve the research objective. To study WIS’s in an appropriate and detailed context, a single case study was conducted in a web development software house. In total the case study approach was used to collect empirical evidence from four projects that investigated post-development change requests in order to identify areas of the system susceptible to change. The maintenance phases of three WIS projects were considered in-depth, resulting in the collection of over four hundred change requests. The fourth project served as a validation case. The results are presented and the findings are used to identify key trends and characteristics that depict WIS maintenance change. The analytical information derived from the change requests is consolidated and shown diagrammatically for the key areas of change using profile models developed in this thesis. Based on the results, the thesis concludes and contributes to the ongoing debate that there is a discernable difference when considering WIS maintenance change compared to that of traditional IS maintenance. The detailed characteristics displayed in the profile models are then used to map specific flexibility criteria that ultimately are required to facilitate change. This is achieved using the Flexibility Matrix of Change (FMoC) tool which was developed within the remit of this research. This tool is a qualitative measurement scheme that aligns WIS maintenance changes to a reciprocal flexibility attribute. Thus, the wider aim of this thesis is to also expand the awareness of flexibility and its importance as a key component of the WIS lifecycle