A descriptive framework for investigating problems in the application of systems development methodologies

It is generally taken as axiomatic that systems development methodologies (SDMs) play a useful role in guiding the development process, and that their increased adoption would improve the product and process of systems development. This paper begins by briefly reviewing the arguments and pressures in favour of SDMs. Following this, a descriptive model of the system development process is formulated, and this is then used as a framework to map a number of fundamental problems in relation to the use of SDMs and their contribution to systems development. Introduction The importance of successful systems development persists as an issue of central significance and concern in the IS field, especially in view of the increasingly-complex applications that need to be developed in today's environment, and the welldocumented problems associated with system development which have given rise to what has been termed the "software crisis" (cf. Brooks, 1987; Martin, 1984; Naur et al., 1976). Much research seems to view the solution to the software crisis in terms of increased adoption of development methodologies, and, indeed, there are several significant arguments and pressures which support the use of methodologies (cf. Fitzgerald, 1995). These arguments and pressures are briefly summarised in Table 1. A Framework for the Systems Development Process It is difficult to criticise methodologies, at least in the abstract, as the arguments and pressures discussed above are indeed significant. However, notwithstanding the 'software crisis' and the prescriptions of the literature, practitioners remain reluctant to adopt formalised methodologies (Aaen, 1986; Avison & Fitzgerald, 1988; Ward, 1992), yet systems continue to be developed, some of which at least perform successfully. Indeed, the assumption that methodologies contribute significantly to the process or product of systems development in practice is by no means proven by research to date (cf. Cerveny & Joseph, 1988; Fitzgerald, 1994b; Wastell & Newman, 1993; Wynekoop & Russo, 1993). Despite the abundance of conceptual and empirical research on methodologies (cf. Fitzgerald, 1994a), there is no universally accepted framework for studying or evaluating methodologies (cf. Sol, 1983). This is all the more problematic given the fact that a huge number of methodologies exist, some of which differ in fairly trivial aspectsthe many variations of the structured approach, for example (cf. Ward, 1991, 1992), while others differ fundamentally, both in paradigm and in coverage. Thus, methodologies range from hard, rationalistic with a technical focusSSADM, for example (Downs et al., 1992) to soft, human-oriented ones with a social focus ISAC, for example (Lundeberg, 1982). There are also those such as ETHICS (Mumford, 1983) which attempt to bridge the social-technical gap Also, methodologies differ markedly in coverage; some do not address preliminary analysis phases, while others ignore later implementation activities (cf. Avison & Fitzgerald, 1988; Sakthivel, 1992). Table 1: Summary of Issues Supporting Formalised System Development Methodologies