The consideration of organizational issues during the systems development process: an empirical analysis

The lack of consideration of organizational issues in systems development can lead to project failure. A review of the literature and a pre-test survey suggested classifying organizational issues into five categories and examining how these are considered by IT managers. A postal survey with responses from 64 senior IT specialists over a cross section of industry and commerce showed that there is a general awareness of the importance of organizational issues but there was little consensus on how they should be addressed in the development process. These IT managers were consistent in spending most effort on the issues perceived as most important from the list of 14 issue provided, but there was considerable variation in which specific issues they rated most important. In general those organizational issues with a `technical’ aspect were given more prominence than those which are less tangible, but which may be more critical to a system’s success

The importance of organisational issues in systems development

Abstract: A survey of senior and influential IT managers explored the related questions of why some senior IT professionals perceive organisational issues to be more important than technical issues, and whether this has a concomitant impact on the treatment of organisational issues. An overall response rate of 63% was achieved from a combined survey of two distinct groups. The results show that there are significant differences in managers’ perceptions about the importance of organisational issues which can, to some extent, be explained in terms of organisational size, and to a lesser extent by the favoured development approach. However, these differences in perception appear to have no identifiable relation to the significant differences in the approaches adopted for treating organisational issues. It is suggested that this is due to the difficulties in treating such issues and further research to resolve these difficulties is proposed

An investigation of the factors affecting the successful treatment of organisational issues in systems development projects

A review of the relevant literature confirms the importance of treating organisational issues in order to avoid information systems development failures. To investigate how such issues are treated in practice and the factors associated with their successful treatment, a large-scale survey was conducted. A questionnaire was mailed to senior IS executives and over 600 responses were received. A majority of the respondents (60%) perceived that organisational issues were more important than technical issues and a similar proportion reported treating these issues explicitly, although there was noticeable variation in the frequency with which specific types of issues were treated. However, only 50% felt that organisational issues were successfully dealt with in more than 30% of the projects for which they were responsible. This proportion seems to be independent of the type of organisation or the general development approach adopted, but the results also indicate that using an approach to treating organisational issues which is explicit, frequent and covers a wide range of specific issues is associated with higher levels of success. These results suggest that senior IT executives need to go further in ensuring that the treatment of organisational issues is given greater time, resource and level of priority

The impact of inadequacies in the treatment of organizational issues on information systems development projects

It has often been argued that systems’ failure may result from inadequacies in the treatment of organizational issues, but there is little consensus on what is meant by the term inadequate treatment and how it influences systems’ success. To test several theoretically plausible hypotheses, a questionnaire was mailed to senior information system (IS) executives and 344 valid responses were received. The results of a statistical analysis indicate that higher levels of systems’ success are associated with treating a wide range of organizational issues throughout the development process and ensuring that members of the user community are actively involved

Anatomy of cascading natural disasters in Japan: main modes and linkages

In order to contribute to the development of risk assessment, cascading natural disasters which are sequences of natural hazards was studied, and the patterns of the interactions between natural disasters were investigated. The data were collected from the database of Japanese newspaper. The relationships between each natural hazard were emerged and divided into four modes: striking, undermining, compounding, and blocking modes. Striking mode means a primary disaster provides sufficient energy to move a significant mass or to propagate the energy through media. In undermining mode, a primary disaster lowers the resistance or weakens a system maintaining mass and causes to collapse. Compounding mode of the linkage shows that a primary disaster reduces the strength of a system. Its difference from undermining mode is that this mode adds to the amount of mass affected. Blocking mode is found in an event blocking steady flows. The results are important for understanding of the impact of these types of cascading natural disaster and so are valuable as a basis for the identification, description, and development of countermeasures

Information systems architecture for fire emergency response

Purpose There has been a lack of meaningful information systems architecture, which comprehensively conceptualise the essential components and functionality of an information system for fire emergency response addressing needs of different job roles. This study proposes a comprehensive information systems architecture which would best support four of the key fire-fighter job roles. Design The study has built on the outcomes of two previous preliminary studies on information and human-computer interaction needs of core fire fighter job roles. Scenario based action research was conducted with fire fighters in a range of roles, to evaluate human computer interaction needs while using various technology platforms. Findings Several key themes were identified and led us to propose several layers of an integrated architecture, their composition and interactions. Research limitations The selected fire scenarios may not represent every type of fire expected in high risk built environments. Practical implications The current paper represents a shared discussion among end users, system architects and designers, to understand and improve essential components. It, therefore, provides a reference point for the development of an information system architecture for fire emergency response. Originality The proposed information system architecture is novel because it outlines specific architectural elements required to meet the specific situation awareness needs of four of the key firefighters job roles

Three cases in Japan occurred by natural hazards and lessons for Natech disaster management

Due to recent climate change, highly-connected society, and the centralization of hazardous materials, Natech is a matter of the growing concern. As Natech disasters occur with low frequency, those in charge of facilities should learn lessons from past cases to prepare for situations in the future in which they may have to respond to a potentially catastrophic event for the first time. This paper describes three Natech cases triggered by the heavy rainfall in Japan in 2018. One resulted in violent explosions, one showed consequences half a year later, and the other managed to avoid a catastrophic situation by preparation based on prior analysis of possible damage. The lessons which can be learnt are as follows: Undertake measures based on the hazardous conditions of materials and possible reactions; Avoid normalcy bias for improved decision-making; Identify slow developing and lagging Natech consequences; Prepare and intensify safeguards to avoid possible damage based on risk analysis; Consider employees’ safety in returning to their homes; Collect micro information and aggregate it; Provide current information about the situation to stakeholders; Plan resources required for recovery activities

Sensor networks supporting fire Emergency Response

Numerous previous studies recognize the importance of providing real-time information to first responders during fire emergencies. However with current Emergency Response (ER) there exists a significant gap with regard to capturing, distributing and presenting real-time contextual information related to incident and wireless sensor networks have shown great potential in addressing this gap. As such, this paper discusses the opportunities and challenges of implementing viable wireless sensor network to support firefighters before, during and after their response work. This discussion is based on the findings of SafetyNet; a research project which investigated information and telecommunication technologies supporting fire emergency response in UK