Knowledge Transfer through User-Analyst Collaboration during Requirements Elicitation

Requirements elicitation is a critical phase in information systems development (ISD), having significant impacts on software quality and costs. Prior research suggests that it is a collaborative activity, where system requirements-related knowledge is extensively shared between users and analysts. This knowledge sharing can get extremely tenuous given the different knowledge perspectives of the two participant groups. However, till date, no known research has attempted to understand how this collaborative process unfolds and how knowledge is shared between users and analysts. Using data from in-depth interviews with analysts from two organizations, the proposed research study attempts to understand how the requirements elicitation process unfolds, how knowledge is shared, and what impedes/enables knowledge transfer in this critical process

A Scientific Visualization Approach to Effective Website Design

In this paper we offer an approach of website design based on Scientific Visualization. Websites may be conceptualized as information architectures that have been designed for a specific set of task(s). We aim to develop effective information representation through the technique of visualization in order to reduce cognitive load in performing such tasks. We approach this formalism by considering the specific task of online product purchase. We model tasks as a sequence of logical operators and discuss a way in which perceptual operators may substitute these logical operators. A replacement of logical operators with perceptual operators results in minimization of cognitive effort in information processing. Embedding these perceptual operators within the website enhances the website task performance. The important implication of this research is an alternative task oriented perspective of website design based on minimizing the cognitive effort in website tasks

A Grounded Theoretical and Linguistic Analysis Approach for Non-Functional Requirements Analysis

An important aspect of the requirements engineering process is the specification of traceable, unambiguous and operationalizable non-functional requirements. This remains a non-trivial task due to the lack of well-documented, systematic procedures that facilitate a structured analysis of the qualitative data that is typically the input to this activity. This research investigates the development of a procedural approach that can potentially fill this gap by incorporating procedural perspectives from Grounded Theory Method, Linguistic Analysis and the Non-Functional Requirement Framework, without significantly deviating from existing practice. This paper describes a preliminary version of this procedural approach along with empirical illustrations using data from a redesign initiative of a library website of a public university in the United States. The paper concludes with a preliminary assessment of the approach and a discussion of the contributions of the research the research

An Exploration into the Process of Requirements Elicitation: A Grounded Approach

Requirements elicitation (RE) is a critical phase in information systems development (ISD), having significant impacts on software quality and costs. While it has remained a key topic of interest for IS researchers, a review of the existing literature suggests that there are very few studies examining how the social process associated with RE unfolds. Prior literature acknowledges that this process involves collaboration between RE participants (e.g., user-reps and systems analysts) where knowledge regarding the system requirements is shared, absorbed, and co-constructed, such that shared mental models of the requirements can form. However, collaboration and knowledge sharing within the RE process has been characterized as tenuous in the literature, given that the groups of RE participants bring very different kinds of knowledge into this activity, and trust among the two parties cannot be guaranteed at any point. Despite acknowledgement of the tenuous nature of RE, we are not aware of research that has attempted to present an integrated view of how collaboration, knowledge transfer, and trust influence the RE process. Using data from two different organizations and adopting a grounded approach, this study presents an integrative process model of RE. The study’s findings suggest that RE is composed of four different collaborative states. The study elaborates on the four states, and identifies important factors that tend to trigger transitions from one state to another

The Critical Role of Political Processes in Small Organizations’ Software Maintenance Efforts

This paper examines the critical role political processes play in small organizations’ software maintenance. To identify political processes, a case study involving two projects (a successful and a failed project) was conducted in a small organization. Analysis of data from the case studies was used to develop insights about the phenomenon which highlight the important role of individuals’ political processes in enabling and impeding organizational objectives. Specifically individual’s political strategies and styles are explored and their effects on the outcome of software maintenance projects are presented. Preliminary findings of this research suggests that project success is contingent on the emergence of a strong political leadership and that such leadership emerges through synergies in political styles and political strategies of individual actors

The Strategic Relevance of IT-enabled Organizational Virtues

Inspired by recent calls for a greater infusion of ethics into business organizations, this research-in-progress paper proposes an ethical perspective to the development of organizational capabilities. Drawing upon Pavlou and El Sawy’s (2010) recent work, it recognizes that organizations need both dynamic and improvisational capabilities in order to be successful. This paper proposes that certain ethical characteristics of organizations, notably organizational virtues, influence these dynamic and improvisational capabilities. The paper also recognizes the salience of IT, in terms of organizational IT affordances, in engendering such virtues. Specifically, certain core organizational IT affordances are theorized to influence the development of such organizational virtues. Overall, this paper contributes by articulating the strategic usefulness of organizational ethicality (in terms of virtues) and the important role IT plays in this mix. The theory presented here is the first step in this research and will guide the future empirical study