Against MethodismItrona LD & Whitley E, Information Techmnology and People, Vol 10, No1,

1997

• Those systems developers who do use methodologies…tend to use parts…often from a variety of different methodologies (quoting Fitzgerald 1996)

• [a dominant mindset]..believes that methodology is a necessary and sufficient requirement for successful IS development

• [we argue for]..appropriate skilled use of tools and techniques - use which emerges from involvement in the world as part of “getting the job done”

• It is our understanding of what is needed in order to develop a system that makes the tools emerge as significant

Against MethodismItrona LD & Whitley E, Information Techmnology and People, Vol 10, No1,

1997

• Methodism suggests:– Methodology X ----> Understanding of situation Y

• In fact– Understaning of Y ----> Methodology X ----> understanding of Y

• Methodology users often get bogged down in the intricate documentation…..the methodology is no longer invisible to the task

• Meaning is always about context BUT

• Methodolgies have to be acontextual SO

• the use of methodology requires considerable recontextualization.

The fiction of methodological developmentNandhakumar J & Avison D, Information Techmnology and People, Vol 10,

No1, 1997

• Development of new methodologies has tended to be technology driven (OOM, CASE)

• ..help move IS development from being a diaorganised ad hoc craft activity towards a more controlled and consistent production process

• ..the dominant perspective provided by a methodology appeared to blind developers to other perspectives..

• In fact the methodology was seen primarily as a “fiction” to present an image of control to the rest of the company. The development work appeared to be regulated by their mutual obligations to colleagues and by their professional identity and career objectives

Methodologies• Tom Naylor however says:

– The bigger the real‑life problems, the greater the tendency for the discipline to retreat into a reassuring fantasy‑land of abstract theory and technical manipulation.

• The Engineering Metaphor:

• The science of systems development

• Software Engineering

• But why? Who says this is always right?

• The evolution metaphor:

• Arthur LJ (1992), Rapid Evolutionary Development: Requirements, Prototyping and Software Creation, Wiley