Rationalism and improvisation: An investigation of requirements engineering in a COTS selection environment

Conboy, K., & Lang, M. (2003). Rationalism and improvisation: An investigation of requirements engineering in a COTS selection environment. In Proceedings of the UK Association for Information Systems Conference (UKAIS). Warwick, UK, April 9–11. https://doi.org/10.13025/29656

Abstract

The use of Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) software applications has become much more prevalent with the emergence of the Web, and more recently with the explosion of hypermedia. However, using COTS applications does not mean the life cycle can be bypassed. The requirements engineering phase of regular development manifests itself in the form of product selection. Herein are reported the findings of a case study of a Web Information System (WIS) development project which incorporates such a product selection approach. Within the field of Information Systems (IS) research, much has been made of the gap between academic research and practice. Nowhere is this more evident than in the area of requirements engineering. In practice, requirements engineering methodologies are not executed in the structured, methodical way advocated by researchers. This is not surprising, as the underlying philosophy of most of these methodologies is that systems development is a rational process, whereas in actuality it is more accurately portrayed as creative, somewhat improvised behaviour. It is therefore important to determine if the key issues suggested by the normative view of requirements engineering corresponds with the approaches being used in the real world. This paper examines requirements engineering practice from a design theory perspective, focusing specifically on the contrast between “rationalism” and “improvisation” and the battle between the need for structure, coordination, co-operation, and the restrictions that they impose. Both philosophies have pitfalls inherently associated with them. This paper describes these pitfalls and discusses how these pitfalls were encountered in the case study. The findings of this paper suggest that, although a methodology may be very specific and firmly based in the “rational” paradigm, the rationale may be too simple for the problem to be solved, thereby forcing the users to improvise by privately making decisions. Furthermore, users may still improvise even if they are not forced to. In conclusion, this paper asserts that even where methodologies are developed and revised based on actual experiences in practice, as opposed to academic theory, a wholly methodical approach is difficult to develop and impossible to follow.

Publisher

UK Academy for Information Systems (UKAIS)

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Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

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Business Information Systems (Conference Papers)