Deferred System's Design: Countering the Primacy of Reflective IS Development with Action-Based Information Systems

Abstract

This chapter examines the issues of who an IS developer is and what constitutes IS design activity. These questions are critical to informing the further progress of evolutionary and adaptable systems. It suggests that action developers should be considered as developers and that IS design should be regarded as ongoing design that is online and in real-time. The IS Design Continuum is introduced to categorise three types of IS design activity, autonomous, specified and deferred. Deferred System’s Design is proposed as incorporating the action developer and ongoing, online design activity that caters for contextual and semantic properties of human information.