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The annual surveys of the Standish group show that user involvement appears to be one of the two most significant factors that contribute to an IT project’s success according to Carroll (2013). The increased interest in the topic is manifested in three recent systematic reviews in the software engineering literature (Abelein & Paech, 2015; Bano & Zowghi, 2015; Brhel, Meth and Maedche, 2015). The problem of user involvement/user participation (we will use these notions interchangeably) in Information Systems Development (ISD) has been investigated in ongoing research for over forty years (Hirschheim & Klein (2012).
Markus & Mao (2004) present a thought-provoking paper on user participation. They provide a deep analysis of the topic and call for rich participation by clients in software projects stating, “that it is not the mere fact or quantity of participation that matters, but also the quality of participation” (Markus & Mao, 2004: 536). They describe that rich participation is encouraged by using analysis techniques that are appropriate for users with non-specialist IT knowledge, by choosing analysis techniques that capture socio-technical requirements in addition to functional requirements, and by using a “facilitation” approach rather than a “technical expert” approach to participation.
An extension of the ideas of Markus & Mao (2004) was provided by Alter (2009) who called for “project collaboration” rather than “user participation”. Alter uses the term “project collaboration” to clarify the extent to which users should be involved, and the need for a comprehensive consideration of all aspects of the project rather than just the technical issues. The above recommendations of Marcus & Mao (2004) and Alter (2009) were the primary motivation for this research.
The issue of client-developer collaboration in formulation of software requirements becomes especially complicated for projects characterised with multiple stakeholders with diverse interests and larger project complexity. Complex ISD projects involve necessary organizational learning to address their complexity and the application of methods that support such learning. This is another motivation for this research. Organizational learning has been promoted among other methods also through systems thinking. Mora, Gelman, Forgionne, Petkov and Cano (2007) analysed the potential of systems thinking for IS research and motivate that the systems approach is most likely to complement the technical analysis of a problem.
A prevalent way in which systems thinking has been used in the Information Systems discipline is through Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) (see Checkland, 1999). Efforts for linking SSM to more formal software requirements elicitation techniques have however been more difficult in practice. Despite the strong IS research tradition in SSM and the growing interest in other systems methodologies, the level of their practical use is relatively low. A possible reason is their complexity if applied as whole methodologies. The search for reducing such complexity through using only some techniques or methods from certain systems methodologies was a further motivation for this research.
The goal of this research is to extend further the ideas of Markus & Mao (2004) and Alter (2009) by proposing a systemic framework for enhancing collaboration between clients and developers. This collaboration will lead to better understanding of software requirements resulting in a more appropriate system for the clients. The framework is using a mix of systems methods from different systems methodologies to suit the multifaceted dimensions of complex ISD projects and to promote organizational learning.