investigation of current environment business systems options definition of requirements technical...

Investigation of currentEnvironment

Business systemsoptions

Definition ofrequirements

Technical systemoptions

Logical Design

Physical Design

Physical Design

Logical Systems Specification

Requirements Specification

Requirements Analysis

Feasibility Study

Pha

ses

and

stag

es o

f S

SA

DM

Implementation

Information Systems Development


An information systems development methodology can be defined as: a collection of procedures, techniques, tools and documentation aids which will help the systems developers in their efforts to implement a new information system.

PEOPLE…we have already seen that an evaluation of the value of different methodologies, the framework proposed by Avison & Fitzgerald, involves PHILOSOPHICAL considerations - those on which the methodology is based. This aspect can be as important, possibly more so, when we consider the viewpoint, the Weltanschauung, of the people involved with information systems development. This does not only include developers, but the users and the clients as well. Avison & Fitzgerald (1995).

Information Systems Development: Methodologies, techniques and tools. 2nd Edition. p10

Weltanschauung

“world view”



FACTS

RELEVANTTIMELY

ACCURATEVERIFIABLE

Avison & Fitzgerald (1995). Information Systems Development: Methodologies, techniques and tools. 2nd Edition. p10

“facts” are transformed into information, which should be:

The information provided should •improve the decision•be recent enough to be useful•be error free (and bias free)•accuracy confirmed by audit trail

an IS contains the raw data of an organisation:



COMMUNICATION

interviewsquestionnaires

reading documentspreparing documents

diagramsmeetingsdialogues

Avison & Fitzgerald (1995). Information Systems Development: Methodologies, techniques and tools. 2nd Edition. p10

people go about accumulating “facts” and transforming them into information by processes of:

such as:


3. COMMUNICATION

interviewsquestionnaires

reading documentspreparing documents

diagramsmeetingsdialogues

2. FACTS

RELEVANTTIMELY

ACCURATEVERIFIABLE 1. PEOPLE

…the viewpoint, the Weltanschauung, of the people involved with information systems development. This does not only include developers, but the users and the clients as well.

Is ISD only a three-strand project?

is “programming” something different?

…equally, we are not operating in isolation, in a void, working on a blank canvas on which we can create any such thing that individually we may imagine or might find suitable.

We cannot divorce the way we think about the world, about our own being, from the way that we do our job or the purposes of work. Indeed, what we believe are the purposes and origins of all actions.

we are working within a tradition and culture which limits our freedom, either knowingly or hidden behind our taken-for-granted assumptions about the way things are.

1. PEOPLE

Let’s address each in turn in more detail:

Weltanschauung

“world view”

The search for natural laws as long been seen as the central task of science, at least since Newton. But the way scientists were supposed to proceed was first systematically described by Francis Bacon (17th C):

Popper by Bryan Magee

“The scientist begins by carrying out experiments whose aim is to make carefully controlled and meticulously measured observations at some point on the frontier between our knowledge and our ignorance. He records his findings systematically, perhaps publishes them, and in the course of time he and other workers in the field accumulate a lot of shared and reliable data. As this grows, general features begin to emerge, and individuals start to formulate general hypotheses - statements

of a lawlike character which fit all the known facts and explain how they are causally related to each other. The individual scientist tries to confirm his hypotheses by finding evidence which will support it. If he succeeds in verifying it he has discovered another scientific law which will unlock more of the secrets of nature.... the method of basing general statements on accumulated observations of specific instances is known as induction.”

...the method of critically testing theories, and selecting them according to the results of tests, always proceeds on the following lines. From a new idea, put up tentatively, and not yet justified in any way, conclusions are drawn by means of logical deduction. These conclusions are then compared with one another and with other relevant statements, so as to find what logical relations (such as equivalence, derivability, compatibility, or incompatibility) exist between them.

The Logic of Scientific Discovery

by Karl R. PopperPopper said that this was NOT the way scientific discoveries proceed at all - we don’t just go out and “observe”, we already have a fair idea of what we are looking for...

“…in my view there is no such thing as induction. Thus inference to theories (whatever that may mean), is logically inadmissible.

The Logic of Scientific Discovery

by Karl R. Popper

…I shall certainly admit a system as empirical or scientific only if it is capable of being tested by experience. These considerations suggest that not the verifiability but the falsifiability of a system is to be taken as the criterion of demarcation.

…My proposal is based upon an asymmetry between verifiability and falsifiability; an asymmetry which results from the logical form of universal statements… for these… can be contradicted by singular statements.”

never assume that we can argue from the truth of singular statements to the truth of theories

BUT a universal theory can be destroyed by a single instance of contradiction

The rationalistic tradition:

• characterise the situation in terms of identifiable objects with well-defined properties

• find general rules that apply to situations in terms of those objects and properties

• Apply the rules logically to the situation of concern, drawing conclusions about what should be done

SCIENTISTS

Much of Western philosophy can be seen as a drive to come up with more systematic and precise formulations of just what constitutes valid reasoning - and this is closely tied to the scientific method

Bacon and Popper are both, however, very much a part of the rationalistic tradition:

A rationalistic orientation is regarded as the very paradigm of what it means to think and be intelligent.

NOT ONLY THAT, BUT

information systems development largely follows this rationalist tradition

But should it?

Imagine that you are chairing a meeting of 15 or so people, at which some important and controversial issue is to be decided. As the meeting goes on you must keep things going in a productive direction, deciding whom to call on, when to cut a speaker off, when to call for an end of discussion or a vote, and so forth. There are forcefully expressed differences of opinion, and if you don't take a strong role the discussion will quickly deteriorate into a shouting match dominated by the loudest, who will keep repeating their own fixed positions in hopes of wearing everyone else down.

2. FACTSconsider the following:

2. FACTS

what are the “facts” in such a meeting? all these are not “facts” - they are interpretations of the meeting.

and some are noticeably “negative” interpretations

“you were the chair”; “it was a meeting”; “15 people present”; “discussion on systems development took place”; “a variety of speakers presented”; “a vote was taken”; “no shouting match developed”; “a consensus was reached”; “a new IS as outlined in the draft document was agreed”.

15 people in the meeting?•has a signature list gone ALL the way round?•were there a number of votes in which 15 votes were always counted?

but some of them could look like objective

facts because

they recur in

individual accounts

“you were the chair”; “it was a meeting”; “15 people present”; “discussion on systems development took place”; “a variety of speakers presented”; “a vote was taken”; “no shouting match developed”; “a consensus was reached”; “a new IS as outlined in the draft document was agreed”.

The meeting and decision making:

Nietzsche: “Life is lived forwards and understood backwards”

You cannot avoid acting - whatever you do is an action, even doing nothing

You cannot “reflect” on your actions

The effect of actions is unpredictable

Language is action

In a discussion, any notion of “What needs to be done?”, is always already oriented in a certain direction of possibilities

and a space of possible actions is revealed and others concealed - an exclusionary bias exists

2. FACTS

the rationalistic viewthe rationalistic view: accepts the existence of an objective reality made up of things bearing properties and entering into relations. A cognitive being “gathers information” about those things and builds up a “mental model” which will be in some respects correct (a faithful representation of reality).

BUT…can “things” exist out there independently of interpretation - is there really a difference between the reflective, knowing ‘subject’ and a separable ‘object’?

Knowledge is a storehouse of representations, which can be

called upon for use in reasoning and which can be

translated into language. Thinking is a process of

manipulating representations.

computers manipulate symbolic representations that some person generated on the belief that they corresponded to facts

there was a good deal of hindsight analysis of the disastrous results for the US Military in Vietnam having placed their faith in computer analyses based on highly distorted and even fabricated “facts”

the “facts” were not necessarily fabricated,consciously or unconsciously

2. FACTS

???????

a “fact” is an assertion by an individual(s) in a context, based on a background of pre-

understanding (which is prejudiced)

coming to this later

this is important, because of what computers generally do:

for example:

The rationalistic tradition and language:

• sentences say things about the world, and can be either true or false

• what a sentence says about the world is a function of the words it contains and the structures into which these are combined

• the content of words in a sentence can be taken as denoting objects, properties or relationships in the world, or sets of these

The rationalist tradition regards language as a system of symbols that are composed into patterns that stand for things in the world - ultimately they are grounded in a correspondence with the state of affairs they represent. This concept of correspondence can be summarised as:

3. COMMUNICATION

If I give you this one assumption, “this lecture started at 12.30 and finishes at 13.30”, answer the following simple question:

The question:

• sentences say things about the world, and can be either true or false

• what a sentence says about the world is a function of the words it contains and the structures into which these are combined

• the content of words in a sentence can be taken as denoting objects, properties or relationships in the world, or sets of these

“Was I wearing a tie when I came in this morning?”

3. COMMUNICATION

• the “I” is probably “Peter Rawlings” as I notionally posed the question by putting up the slide - but I didn’t actually say the words

“Was I wearing a tie when I came in this morning?”

3. COMMUNICATION

Your reply, either YES or NO, is heavily dependent on a common understanding of the question:

• “when I came in” is referring to entering this lecture room because it is unlikely any of those present now were present when I entered UWE initially

• “this morning” is sometime between dawn and midday, and yet this lecture

started at 12.30pm so this was a loose definition of “morning”

• “a tie” is a piece of cloth worn around the neck, mainly by men, usually under the collar of a shirt. However, it could be any restraint: I cycle to work so I wear one on each leg to stop my trousers getting dirty

Answer this simple question:

Assuming this lecture ran from 12.30 to 13.30:

is the existence of facts and the communication between individuals based on an objective reality as the rationalist tradition requires?

1. PEOPLE2. FACTS3. COMMUNICATION


are facts and communication (the meaning of language) all based on people?

everything we say is said against the background of experience and tradition,

and makes sense only with respect to it.

Martin HEIDEGGER:

Sein und Zeit (1927)

OR

Knowledge is always the result of interpretation, which depends on the entire previous experience of the interpreter

and situatedness in a tradition.

objectivity:subjectivityRationalism based on Galileo and Descartes - Plato and Aristotle before. Rationalists accept the mind-body dualism - there is an objective world of physical reality, and a subjective mental world of individual thoughts and feelings.

Heidegger rejects both the simple objective stance (the objective physical world is the primary reality) and the simple subjective stance (my thoughts and feelings are the primary reality), arguing instead that it is impossible for one to exist without the other.

“The interpreted and the interpreter do not exist independently: existence is interpretation and interpretation is existence. Separation of subject and object denies the more fundamental unity of being-in-the-world” Heidegger in Sein und Zeit (1927)

understanding:Western philosophical tradition is based on the assumption that the detached theoretical point of view is superior to the involved practical viewpoint. The scientist or philosopher who devises theories is discovering how thing really are, while in everyday life we have only a clouded idea.

Heidegger reverses this, insisting that we have primary access to the world through practical involvement with the ready-to-hand - the world in which we are always acting unreflectively.

Detached contemplation can be illuminating, but obscures phenomena by isolating and categorising them.

“we have primary access to the world through practical involvement in actions”

Heidegger in Sein und Zeit (1927)

prejudice:

"It is not so much our judgements as it is our prejudices that constitute our being… the historicity of our existence, entails that prejudices, in the literal sense of the word, constitute the initial directedness of our whole ability to experience. Prejudices are biases of our openness to the world. They are simply conditions whereby we experience something - whereby what we encounter says something to us."

Gadamer (1976), Philosophical hermeneutics

prejudice:Heidegger argues that the practices, in terms of which we render the world and our own lives intelligible, cannot be made exhaustively explicit. There is no neutral viewpoint from which we can see our beliefs as things, since we always operate within the framework they provide.

This does not negate the importance of trying to gain greater understanding of our own assumptions so that we can expand our horizons, but this will never be objective and will always be incomplete.

Heidegger in Sein und Zeit (1927)

... programmers are making commitments through formalisation of their representations of recurring situations which arise in a business. A person writing a program does so within a background of assumptions about how the program will be used, and how its responses will be interpreted.


Part of this can be made explicit in documentation, but part is an implicit background of what can be normally understood (see "Keeping it simple" by Donald Norman).


Inevitably there will a breakdown because the system is being used in a way that does not fit the assumptions.

Concealment of the commitment of the programmer to the dialogue performed by the programs in the computer leads to an illusion of objectivity. Since the "facts" stored by the computer cannot be readily associated with a commitment by an individual, it is easy to be blind to the nature of their origin.


FACTS

RELEVANTTIMELY

ACCURATEVERIFIABLE

“facts” are transformed into information, which should be:

The information provided should •improve the decision•be recent enough to be useful•be error free (and bias free)•accuracy confirmed by audit trail

an IS contains the raw data of an organisation:

we can now see this is idealistic - biases can only be contained with our traditions

this would need to be extended to the programmer, not just the raw data in the system

?

Data Analysis?

… the theory of data analysis embodies objectivist assumptions of an independent reality composed of entities, attributes and relationships…an independent existing reality is thus accepted as both the ultimate source of knowledge for creating a data model, and the means by which the integrity of the correctness of a data model may be validated

PEOPLE

Lewis (1994). Information Systems Development. Published by PitmanFACTS

Data Analysis?

PEOPLE

The starting point for thinking about information systems must therefore be thinking about the organisational activities that the information system is to serve

FACTS

the concept of adaptation tells us that business activities will be continually changing

managing the relationship between information systems and business activities over time is needed to match the information provided by the serving information system to the information needs of the served organisation and its members.

Lewis is clearly influenced by Soft Systems Methodology thinking – the methodology developed by Peter Checkland (Systems Thinking: Systems Practice)

PEOPLE

…because of the kind of thinking it entails, IT is not simply a new tool… it stirs things up, introduces uncertainties, gets people perceiving their world in a new way.

FACTSCheckland & Holwell (1999). Information, Systems and Information Systems.

Although database modellers have striven hard to build implementation independent models, the truth is that implementation capabilities do affect business models

PEOPLE

Technology and implementation models may be part of our culture now and this may easily be influencing our conceptions of the world.

FACTS

Dorsey & Hudicka (1999). Oracle 8 design using UML object modeling.

gets people perceiving their world in a new way

Which may well not be free of technological concerns or implementation-independent:

Are we now structuring the world in terms of what could be stored in a computer – viewing the world in terms of the way we conceive a computer works?

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