Entrepreneurial IS Development: Why Techniques Matter and Methods Don’t

• Published in: Human-Computer Interaction: Users and Contexts pp. 218 - 225
• Main Author: Obwegeser, Nikolaus
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Cham Springer International Publishing 2015
• Series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science
• Subjects: Agile; IS development; Methodology; Software engineering
• ISBN: 331921005X; 9783319210056
• ISSN: 0302-9743; 1611-3349
• DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-21006-3_22

In this article we look at the current situation of information systems development in research and mirror our findings with insights from practice. Many firms and decision makers underestimate the influence that IS development projects have on their success and competitiveness. In addition, the process of efficient development of high quality and value-creating software remains a major challenge for many organizations. After a review of general IS development approaches we draw on an analysis of the literature on method tailoring and contingency approaches in IS development in combination with qualitative empirical insights from two software development companies to posit that past research has largely focused on creating bloated, inflexible methods rather than flexible toolsets. Based on the analysis of our findings we propose an open, framework-based IS development approach that allows for the flexibility required in practice but still ensures learning processes, knowledge retention and transfer.