Thesis Abstract and Dissertation Abstracts
Decision-Making and Support for Method Adaptation
Abstract Category: Other Categories
Course / Degree: n/a
Institution / University: University of Twente, Netherlands
Published in: 2005
This research asserts that situated method development involves a decision making process that contains intriguing interplays between the context, agent and method fragment as essential elements of a project situation. In this research, such a decision-making process is regarded as a phenomenon and called method adaptation. We present the foundation of method adaptation, a generic model and decision-making support for method adaptation. By employing relevant studies in the literature and the field study conducted in this research, we evaluate the generic model and the use of an instrument to support method adaptation in an organization.
Information systems development (ISD), as a change process in a target organisation to achieve objectives, includes well-known phases such as analysis, design and implementation of an information system. ISD methods have been of interest to IS scholars and practitioners for a long time since they are essential to structuring method users’ thinking and actions for ISD and achievement of desired information systems. This research is concerned with situated method development which is about how to achieve a method that fits a project situation. It has been acknowledged as a promising research endeavor to overcome a long-standing problem with information systems development (ISD) methods. That is, as methods are not used as prescribed in practice, they fall short in supporting practitioners in the development of information systems for, for instance, a globally networked organisation using new development approaches such as agile systems development. While new methods are promoted as a panacea for well-publicized ISD failures, old ones have been criticized that they are rigid, comprehensive and are built upon the idea that a method can be used for all projects which brings on a “one size fits all” issue. In fact a fundamental problem still remains that methods, irrespective to their preferred features (agility, stateof- the art knowledge foundations), by nature involve certain thinking and often prescribe certain actions for ISD. The subject matter at hand addresses this “one-size-fits-all” issue and aims to deal with how an ISD method is developed and can be supported so that the resulting method, so-called situated method, fits a project situation. The idea behind a situated method is that any prospective method to be used for a development project is subject to certain adjustments because of the fact that the method is limited to its preferred thinking and prescribed actions for ISD which cannot fully accommodate the uniqueness of a project situation. In this regard, such adjustments are needed for the method along with a premise that the resulting method can provide a well-suited means for ISD and in turn reduce the risk of its failures. The goal of this research is to support situated method development, or in a practical sense, to help one aiming to achieve a situated method. In conjunction with this goal, this research seeks answers to: what does situated method development and support mean in relevant literature and practice? How to achieve such support? The basic tenet in the logic of connecting these questions is that to provide viable support for situated method development one needs to understand its underpinnings in terms of notions and approaches of the subject and how it is realized in practice. In this respect, this research presents two key outcomes: foundation of and support for situated method development.
Regarding foundation of situated method development, we start reviewing the relevant studies in the schools of thought referred as Information Systems Research, Method Engineering, and Implementation Research. Upon critical examination of the relevant studies via certain taxonomic dimensions and observed practice we claim that basic models proposed for situated method development provide partial, yet alternative approaches to situated method development. Thus we regard situated method development as a phenomenon for which an examination should be done at a fundamental level where its key underlying notions are naturally revealed and articulated. We call this phenomenon method adaptation and establish its foundation through the articulation of four key notions (situation, context, agency, and method fragment). To achieve such a foundation, certain accounts in the reference (human-decision making and support literature) and supportive (sociology, cognitive psychology, philosophy of mind and linguistics) clusters have been employed. The foundation of method adaptation manifests the idea of modifications, changes on, and interplays among the key underlying notions. As such, we conjecture that the ‘Method Adaptation Process’, in short ‘MAP’, is a capability in which an agent holding intentions through responsive changes in, and dynamic interplay between, context, and method fragment develops a situated method fragment for a specific project situation. We employ the notion of situation as a binding and composite construct for the other three notions. With certain accounts in the referenced disciplines, we conceptualize situation as a limited portion of the world – partial reality– as emerging over location, time, and agent. Three other essential notions (context, agency, and method fragment) are examined carefully and extensively to pave the way for further development and illumination of method adaptation. In particular, we argue that a naturalistic decision-making approach among others (prescriptive and normative) provides promising ideas to reveal the decision-making processes underlying method adaptation. We remark that the prevailing models proposed for situated method development, as they adopt normative or prescriptive views of method adaptation, consider context as static and reduce its meaning to a number of characteristics. By adopting the naturalistic decision making model, we adopt the idea of characterizing to explain how the context takes place in method adaptation. In a similar vein, we provide extended meanings of method fragment and agency. Together with an extension of the meanings of context, agency, and method fragment, we produce a generic model for MAP. With this model we are able to demonstrate intriguing interplays between the agency, context, and method fragment defined as essential constructs. Having presented the foundation of MAP and proposing a generic model for MAP, we explicate and evaluate the generic model for MAP in two different ways. By using basic models proposed for method adaptation in the literature, we hypothesize that the generic model ‘accommodates’ these models as specific MAP patterns. By accommodate we mean that MAP incorporates the underlying reasoning for relationships among key constructs embedded in the basic models. In this regard, the generic model is evaluated analytically as it serves as a kind of a meta-model for basic models. Second, we explicate and evaluate MAP on an empirical basis by using the case study conducted for this work. Explication is done by showing the existence of two forms of MAP identified in the ISD department of the leading financial organisation in Europe: static and dynamic method adaptation. The first form considers MAP in a static manner (i.e., the characterization processes of MAP are based on a “prescribed situation”), whereas the dynamic method adaptation employs these processes for “the situation on the move” throughout the project execution. We provide some insight plus an instrument used that the organisation dealt with the dynamic method adaptation. We conclude that these forms of method adaptation reflect a complementary aspect of the engineering and socioorganisational perspectives as they correspond to certain patterns of the generic model of MAP.
Regarding decision-making support for situated method development – or in short MAP support, drawing upon state-of-the-art knowledge in the decision making and decision support systems (DSS) literature, we describe MAP support in terms of what it is, why it is useful, and how to achieve it. To establish a basis for MAP support we review basic elements of decisionmaking support which are grouped into three dimensions: decision support orientation (referring to value orientation, decision-making support paradigm, effect, and effectiveness), focus of decision support (referring to MAP layers and levels), existing means (types of DSS, techniques, and tools). In this way we complement the idea of method adaptation by proposing a novel approach for MAP support called Naturalistic Decision Support (NDS), and suggest it as an appropriate way to truly achieve MAP support. Further, we examine the viability of NDS for MAP in the case organisation and discuss it using relevant elements for MAP support. In our case organisation we have identified three distinguishing stages relevant to MAP support. These three stages have provided an illustration of how MAP support was experienced over ten years in an ISD organisation. In particular, we show “evolving MAP support” by which “appropriate delivery of advice and guidance” on MAP has been achieved after a certain time period. As the three stages indicate, this study shows that agility of the method used, the degree of consensus of the meaning of method adaptation held by involved parties, the appropriateness of the approach to method adaptation (top-down, bottom-up, or middle-out reflecting dominations of involved parties), and the combination of humanand technology-based means are essential to a suitable delivery of decision support on method adaptation. We believe that this empirical investigation of MAP support explicates the often-cited suggestion in the decision support literature that before providing tool-based decision support to practitioners we should first understand how the decision is made. We conclude that such an understanding would take several years, as was the case for the organisation investigated, depending on the explicitness and complexity of discourses embedded in a decision-making process. In the final chapter we discuss implications of the research in relation to possible research avenues such as experience-based method adaptation (referring to a novel way of capturing, organizing, disseminating, and maintaining experience about method adaptation), MAP patterns (referring to the effect of industry, organisation and systems-related characteristics on MAP patterns), Naturalistic MAP Support (referring to viability of MAP support in empirical setting), method adaptation in globally distributed systems development, and method adaptation for agile methods. As concluding remarks, we emphasize that naturally and essentially, the foundation of method adaptation is established by extending existing literature and the case study conducted. It is natural that such an extension was needed because the very notion of agency deserves more attention as the heart of method adaptation. It is essentially needed because without this notion, method adaptation lacks its essential feature referring to how the agent in some way adapts her knowledge (either through her own or method fragments proposed) to the context or the other way around. One can argue about where her adaptive capability comes from. We all have this capability, which goes beyond the basic discussion of survivability. Whether it is granted or learned it is this capability that makes the agent aware about what is going on around her and helps the agent involved in method adaptation in particular to manage intriguing interplays among herself, the context, and the method fragment.
Thesis Keywords/Search Tags:
systems development, methods, methodologies, method engineering
This Thesis Abstract may be cited as follows:
Aydin, M.N. (2006)Decision-Making and Support for Method Adaptation, Unpublished Dissertation, University of Twente, The Netherlands
Submission Details: Thesis Abstract submitted by Mehmet Nafiz Aydin from Netherlands on 08-May-2006 16:43.
Abstract has been viewed 2608 times (since 7 Mar 2010).
Mehmet Nafiz Aydin Contact Details: Email: m.n.aydin@utwente.nl
Disclaimer
Great care has been taken to ensure that this information is correct, however ThesisAbstracts.com cannot accept responsibility for the contents of this Thesis abstract titled "Decision-Making and Support for Method Adaptation". This abstract has been submitted by Mehmet Nafiz Aydin on 08-May-2006 16:43. You may report a problem using the contact form.
© Copyright 2003 - 2025 of ThesisAbstracts.com and respective owners.