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Towards an Understanding of ISD – Reflections on a 20 Year Long Journey

Towards an Understanding of ISD – Reflections on a 20 Year Long Journey. Karlheinz Kautz Karl.Kautz@cbs.dk Copenhagen Business School Informatics Information Systems Development. ISD Conference – Paphos, Cyprus, August 2008. The First ISD Proceedings. ISD Research – Where do we stand?.

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Towards an Understanding of ISD – Reflections on a 20 Year Long Journey

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  1. Towards an Understanding of ISD– Reflections on a 20 Year Long Journey Karlheinz Kautz Karl.Kautz@cbs.dk Copenhagen Business School Informatics Information Systems Development ISD Conference – Paphos, Cyprus, August 2008

  2. The First ISD Proceedings

  3. ISD Research – Where do we stand? Out of a Critique of Traditional Information Systems Development Evolutionary Prototyping Agile Development 1988 How did we get there? 2008

  4. ISD Research: What is it about?The Topics of the ISD Conference: Concepts and Context • Philosophical and Theoretical Issues in Information Systems Development • Information Systems Research Methodologies • Information Systems Development Education Methods and Processes • Information Systems Engineering & Management • Model-driven Engineering in Information Systems Development • Business Systems Analysis & Design • Agile and High Speed Systems Development Methods • Service-Oriented Analysis and Design of Information Systems • Human Computer Interaction (HCI) in Information Systems Development • Legal and Administrative Aspects of Information Systems Development Application Areas and Products • Intelligent Information Systems • Enterprise Systems Development & Adoption • Public Information Systems Development

  5. Process focus: ISD as social process methodical process economical process global, distributed process outsourced process open source process amethodical, emergent, improvised process design process agile process Product focus: ISD for tailor made solutions standardised solutions web services ISD Research: What is it about?The ECIS ´07 Track Topic list - Studies of ISD Practice

  6. ISD : What is it about?A Working Definition Sambamurthy & Kirsch (2000) define the ISD process as follows Information systems development processes in organizations are the tasks undertaken to construct a computer-based information system, and the management of this effort, by a group of stakeholders with agendas, who engage in transactions over time with an institutional context by applying structure to their work with a set of tools and methodologies, and who judge outcomes of their efforts and act accordingly

  7. ISD : What is it about?Another Definition • Information systems development is the profession of constructing computer systems for the use of human beings in receiving, processing, storing, and communicating information. • It consists of all those activities, comprising managerial ones, that aim at changing an organization or individual human behavior through the use of computer technology and/or information and communication technology and deals to a large extent with human, social, organizational, economical and technical issues and solutions both concerning the development and the application of IT. • It includes development activities such as the analysis, design, programming, and maintenance of IT as well as supporting activities such as project, quality, change and document management and the methods, techniques and tools to perform these tasks. • Furthermore it covers those considerations concerning the utilization and implementation and wider diffusion of information-technological innovations. (inspired by Andersen et al. 1990, Avison Fitzgerald 2006)

  8. ISD Research – Some Background Process Scandinavia Bansler 1989 System Theoretical Socio- Technical Critical Tradition USA Orlikowski & Baroudi 1991 Critical Epistomolgy Positivist Interpretive Scandinavia Dahlbom & Mathiassen 1993 Hard Systems Thinking Soft Systems Thinking Dialectical Thinking Design Science Participatory Design Product Scandinavia/ USA Bjerknes et al 1987 Schuler & Namioka 1993 Scandinavia/ Germany Floyd 1987 USA Walls et al 1992 Hevner et al 2004

  9. ISD Research Approaches to Improve • Collaborative • Research • Combining: • Practice Studies • Experiments • Action Research • And • Design Science Intervene Design Interpret/Analyse to Support to Understand

  10. 1988 2008 My Way Evolutionary Protoyping Agile Development Information Systems Development as an innovative knowledge-intensive quality and improvement oriented process Software Process Improvment & Quality Management Knowledge Management 1993 2003 Adoption & Diffusion

  11. Some Contributions • Adoption & Diffusion • Software Process Improvement & Quality Managment • Knowledge Management The themes are interwined!

  12. The Original Version of the Framework: SPI as ISD Innovation from a KM perspective

  13. Some Digressions • ISD as an opportunistic process ’Der Augenblick’ of the Improvisation • ISD as an improvisional process

  14. The first Version of the Framework: ISD as organisational Innovation – Method Enactment

  15. The second Version of the Framework ISD as organisational Innovation – Method Emergence, Formalized Method & Reflective Practitioner

  16. The latest Version of the Framework: Researching Agile Software Development in Practice

  17. The Values of the Agile Manifesto Edge of Chaos – ASD as structured chaos: At the same time stable and unstable Never quite locks into place, yet never quite dissolves into turbulence Provides organizations with both the stimulation and freedom to experiment and to adapt and with sufficient structures to avoid disorderly disintegration Gives competitive advantage: systems that are driven to the edge of chaos out-compete those which are not It is the place where the really interesting behavior occurs

  18. Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) Theory An insightful grounding for understanding complex systems: (1) time-pacing (e.g. bi-weekly iterations) vs. occurrence of events (2) coevolution vs. evolution (3) working on the edge of chaos vs. too much or too little structure (4/5) autonomous agents working in a self- organising, emergent, and bottom-up manner vs. top-down management (6) working at the edge of time vs. too much focus on the future (exploration) or on the past (exploitation).

  19. A General Outlook More research is needed to investigate if and how Complex Adaptive Systems Theory is relevant as a theoretical foundation for understanding information systems development in general

  20. Some Literature • K. Kautz, H.W. Hansen, K. Thaysen (2001), Understanding and Changing Software Organisations: An Exploration of Four Perspectives on Software Process Improvement, in Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems, Vol. 13, pp. 7-23 • K. Kautz, K. Thaysen (2001), Knowledge, Learning and IT Support in a Small Software Company, in Journal of Knowledge Management, Vol. 5, No. 4, pp. 349-357 • K. Kautz, P.A. Nielsen (2004), Understanding the Implementation of Software Process Improvement Innovations in Software Organisations, in Information Systems Journal, Vol. 14, No. 1, pp. 3-22 • K. Kautz, B. Hansen, D. Jacobsen (2004), The Utilization of Information Systems Development Methodologies in Practice, In Journal of Information Technology Cases and Applications, Vol. 6, No. 4 • K. Kautz, B. Nielsen (2006), Principals, Agents and Prisoners: An Economical Perspective on Information Systems Development Practice, in The Information Universe: The Journal of Issues in Informing Science and Information Technology, Vol. 3, pp. 307-31 • S. Madsen, K. Kautz, R. Vidgen (2006), A framework for understanding how a unique and local IS development method emerges in practice, In European Journal of Information Systems Vol. 15 (2), 225–238 • K. Kautz, A. Kjærgaard (2007), Towards an Integrated Model of Knowledge Sharing in Software Development: Insights from a Case Study, inInternational Journal of Knowledge Management, 3(2), 91-117, April-June 2007 • K. Kautz, S. Madsen, J. Nørbjerg (2007), Persistent Problems and Practices In Information Systems Development, in Information Systems Journal, Vol. 17 (3), 217-239 • K. Kautz, H.-K. Jørgensen, C. F. Pedersen. M. Sinnet, S. M. Rab (2007), The Role of Improvisation and Politics in ISD Practice, in Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Information Systems Development - Challenges in Practice, Theory and Education, Galway, Ireland, August 29 - 31,  2007 • K. Kautz, S. Zumpe (2008), Just Enough Structure at the Edge of chaos: Agile Information Systems Development in Practice, in Abrahamsson, P. et al. (eds.) Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming- Proceedings of the International Conference XP 2008, Limerick, Ireland, June 2008, pp. 137-146

  21. Thank you! Questions?

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