The author spent much of the years prior to January 2000 as an international consultant for Y2K issues.  During this period, a very large quantity of quantitative and qualitative data has been collected, together with many one-to-one interviews with very prominent IT leaders in business.  This data led to extensive empirical research concerning the  real ills  of the IT/IS industry, with fascinating results.  The phenomenology we have seen, in tens of installations, each with hundreds of millions of lines of code (or more) have shown the breadth of gap between academic research and  real world  business Information Technology / Information Systems.  This paper attempts to point out part of this large gap and hopefully, shows some reasons for its continued existence.  This paper is intended to trigger wider interest in IT / IS research

Ben-Menachem, Mordechai

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Communications of the Association for Information SystemsVolume 6 Article 5March 2001IT/IS Management and Research DirectionsMordechai Ben-MenachemBen Gurion University, quality@acm.orgFollow this and additional works at: https://aisel.aisnet.org/caisThis material is brought to you by the AIS Journals at AIS Electronic Library (AISeL). It has been accepted for inclusion in Communications of theAssociation for Information Systems by an authorized administrator of AIS Electronic Library (AISeL). For more information, please contactelibrary@aisnet.org.Recommended CitationBen-Menachem, Mordechai (2001) "IT/IS Management and Research Directions," Communications of the Association for InformationSystems: Vol. 6 , Article 5.DOI: 10.17705/1CAIS.00605Available at: https://aisel.aisnet.org/cais/vol6/iss1/522                                  Communications of the Association for Information Systems (Volume 6, 2001) 22-25  IT/IS Management and Research Directions by M. Ben-Menachem   IT/IS MANAGEMENT AND RESEARCH DIRECTIONS  Mordechai Ben-Menachem  Dept. of Information Systems Engineering  Ben-Gurion University  quality@acm.org  ABSTRACT The author spent much of the years prior to January 2000 as an international consultant for Y2K issues. During this period, a very large quantity of quantitative and qualitative data has been collected, together with many one-to-one interviews with very prominent IT leaders in business. This data led to extensive empirical research concerning the "real ills" of the IT/IS industry, with fascinating results. The phenomenology we have seen, in tens of installations, each with hundreds of millions of lines of code (or more) have shown the breadth of gap between academic research and "real world" business Information Technology / Information Systems. This paper attempts to point out part of this large gap and hopefully, shows some reasons for its continued existence. This paper is intended to trigger wider interest in IT / IS research.  I. ISSUE  IT/IS is not an exact science. It is much more an "engineering discipline" than a "natural science." As such, there are no "natural laws" to be discovered, no clear, non-controversial directions for research, and no "absolute" or "critical" things to be discovered. Perhaps, the critical things are parts of other disciplines. The issue is then whether IT/IS research is relevant or even, if it is a "legitimate" academic area of activity.     II. DEFINITION OF RELEVANCE  As used here, relevant refers to "relevant" (to someone), "serves interest" (of someone) and/or an idea of "useful to someone" (though not construed to mean useful to someone’s "publish or perish" budget). The assumption being that relevance is sufficiently shown if any of these conditions exist. An additional issue may be raised as to research "significance", which may be independent of relevance. Significance would depend upon existence of a result, while relevance may exist prior to (or independent of) a result. Remembering that a hypothesis proven false is also a significant research result – though there is an issue as to how to publish this result because no one likes to admit something an apparent failure. The final degree would then be "applicable." However, one must be very careful, as research may seem non-applicable when performed but find a very important application at some late time. Certainly, engineering is full of many brilliant examples of such time delays. We see then, that there are degrees of "relevance" all germane to this discussion. "Relevant" is an attribute of research.   III. A BASIS FOR RELEVANCE   Regardless of the eventual significance of a specific research result, for research to possess any degree of relevance the research must have some degree of currency. That is, research cannot be considered relevant if the subject of the research is already well known and adds nothing new Communications of the Association for Information Systems (Volume 6, 2001) 22-25                                  23 IT/IS Management and Research Directions by M. Ben-Menachem to human knowledge. A basic concept of any research is that it does not duplicate or circumvent established knowledge, but somehow adds to existing knowledge. We shall call this second attribute of research "legitimacy."   IV. A TAXONOMICAL VIEW   What precisely is meant by IT/IS? Using these words as a term, one is in danger of seeing only the concept and not the larger issue. Information Technology is technological solutions for dealing with information (acquiring, managing, storing and disseminating). Information Systems are actual implementations of these technological tools. Information Technology is then, perhaps the most inter-disciplinary of all fields of human activity because all activities are information based.  The short history of IT has been amazingly successful. Information Systems are pervasive. Many technologies matured (to varying degrees) and the world is clearly a better place. Hundreds of billions of dollars are spent yearly on Information Systems. Millions of highly skilled professionals, based on practically every landmass on the globe, are active. Nations compete for IS business. Yet, the discipline still lacks a paradigm to manage created assets [Ben-Menachem and Gelbard 2001] - with the Y2K fiasco (a management, not technological fiasco) as perhaps the strongest testament to this lack.  In most cases, when this author has attempted to discuss Software Asset Management with professionals, either their eyes glazed over or they thought I referred to Configuration Management. What other area of human endeavour spends hundreds of billions of dollars, with essentially no management? It must be understood that I do not present the management issue as an example of an issue. It, itself, is very central. The questions of IT/IS relevance cannot be addressed if management is viewed trivially. V. RESEARCH AREAS  Separate structures exist in academia for Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Library Science, Ergonomics, Industrial Management and more. Are these "legacy structures" doomed to eventual phase-out or is this separation as desirable as that between (say) chemistry and chemical engineering? The answer lies in the larger issue of where the basis of IT/IS is - information or computing, a fundamental issue, not to be decided lightly. Are research efforts performed in industry of lesser value than those performed by academia? This question is legitimate question, as industrial development is less rigorous than academic research. Whether the answer is positive or not, what should be the attitude of academia to these efforts, after-the-fact? Example 1: "Software Process Improvement" (SPI) efforts are widespread – CMM/CMMI [Paulk et al., 1993; Fowler and Rifkin, 1990], SPICE / ISO15504 (produced by the International Software Engineering Standards Committee, through the Process Assessment Working Group, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC7/WG10, as a nine-part document) [Dorline,alec et al., 1995] and more. SPI efforts, extensively applied in major organisations of all types and sizes, rely on effective integration of technological, managerial, methodological and organisational solutions. This imperative becomes increasingly obvious as professionals attempt to deal with conflicting challenges of complexity, quality, and competitiveness. Where and how, should these concepts be studied?   Many prominent professionals try to view IT/IS research as a study of e-commerce systems. Yet, processes used to create these e-systems do not differ significantly from those for many other types of systems. SPI can itself be considerably improved by using Information Technology. A Distributed Asynchronous Group Support System (e-something) can play a major role in improvement efforts. Corporate Learning is a major objective.    Example 2: Industry developed far-reaching concepts of peer-to-peer paradigms such as, Napster and GNUTELLA, Notes, and Groove. Where and how, should these concepts be studied?     24                                  Communications of the Association for Information Systems (Volume 6, 2001) 22-25  IT/IS Management and Research Directions by M. Ben-Menachem VI. CONCLUSION   The issue raised attempts to ask if IT/IS research is relevant. I believe the question is badly phrased.  • First, the terminology of the concept of "IT/IS research" needs to be much better defined. At present, the borders between IS/IT and other disciplines are vague. What really constitutes IS/IT research is an open question. IT/IS is not biology where what is and is not known, is clear.  • Second, the general discipline, as well as its place in academia, needs to be defined. One of the most prominent of research efforts in this area is Lehman’s FEAST project [Lehman and Belady, 1985; Lehman et al. 2000].  • Finally, no discipline can be well defined until its management structure is well understood. No Civil or Chemical Engineer would dream of developing systems with hundreds of millions of dollars in expenses and devoid of a management structure to control the assets.  Is Information Technology and Information Systems research relevant? It will be when we know what we are, who we are and where we are trying to go.   REFERENCES Ben-Menachem, Mordechai and Roi Gelbard (2001). Integrated IT Management Tool Kit. Communications of ACM (44)4 April (to appear)  Dorling, Alec (Project Manager) et al,Software Process Assessment     Part 1: Concepts and introductory guide  Part 2: A model for process management   Part 3: Rating processes   Part 4: Guide to conducting assessment   Part 5: Construction, selection and use of assessment instruments and   Tools   Part 6: Qualification and training of assessors   Part 7: Guide for use in process improvement   Part 8: Guide for use in determining supplier process capability   Part 9: Vocabulary  International Software Engineering Standards Committee, Process Assessment Working Group, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC7/WG10; Version 1.0; January 1995. Fowler, Priscilla and Stan Rifkin (1990) Software Engineering Process Group Guide, Pitttsburgh, PA: Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University; CMU/SEI-90-TR-24, ESD-90-TR-225; September.  Lehman, M. M., J. F. Ramil and G. Kahen (2000) Evolution as a Noun and Evolution as a Verb; SOCE 2000 Workshop on Software and Organisation Co-evolution"; 13-14 July 2000; london: Imperial College, London.  Communications of the Association for Information Systems (Volume 6, 2001) 22-25                                  25 IT/IS Management and Research Directions by M. Ben-Menachem Lehman, M. M. and L. A. Belady (1985) Program Evolution – Processes of Software Change; London: Academic Press 1985.  Paulk, Mark C., et al;(1993). Capability Maturity Model for Software, Version 1.1. Pittsburgh,PA: Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University; CMU/SEI-93-TR-24, ESC-TR-93-177; February     ABOUT THE AUTHOR Mordechai Ben-Menachem is Adjunct Lecturer in the Information Systems Engineering Department, Ben-Gurion University, Israel. He has been active in all areas of Software Engineering and Software Quality over three decades. He is active in ACM, I-SPIN, IPA and IEEE and with international standards and standardization activities through the Software Engineering Technical Committee, since 1979. His activities included participation in balloting, commenting, and writing International Software Engineering standards. Mr. Ben-Menachem is the author of fourteen professional books and six books of literature and philosophy and edited two others. He is the author of some three hundred-fifty professional papers in both English and Hebrew. Mr. Ben-Menachem's specialities are in Software Assets Management and evaluating, implementing and planning software quality and process improvement programs, with emphasis on Software Maintenance.   Copyright © 2001 by the Association for Information Systems. 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IT/IS Management and Research Directions

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IT/IS Management and Research Directions

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