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Subject Overview
Welcome to the subject of information systems development methodologies! This
lecture provides an introduction to the core concepts and the subject's academic
material. The lecturer for this subject is Gesand Ben-Dur, who is also the subject
coordinator, a professor of information systems, and the head of the information
systems discipline.
The lectures are online, but the tutorials are face-to-face on campus and will
begin next week.
Recordings of the lectures will be made available on Canvas shortly after the
lecture is completed.
Tutorials and Teamwork
Enrollment in a tutorial is mandatory.
Students will work in teams of five to six for a project.
All team members must be from the same tutorial due to in-tutorial software
development simulations.
Assessment Breakdown
The subject has a final exam, quizzes, and a project which is split into two parts. The
precise weighing of each task is available on Canvas.
Each quiz is worth 5%.
The first part of the project is worth 10%.
The presentation is worth 15%.
The second part of the project (the report) is worth 25%.
The final exam is worth 40%.
A passing grade requires 50% and above
Information Systems Development
Methodologies
Prerequisites
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The prerequisite for this subject is BRM (Business Requirements Management).
BRM itself has a prerequisite: Introduction to Information Systems. No prior coding or
SQL knowledge is strictly necessary, though it could be helpful.
Methodologies and Methods
The terms "methodologies" and "methods" will be used interchangeably.
What is an Information System Development Method?
An Information Systems Development Method can be viewed as a project
management method specifically tailored for Information Systems Development
Projects.
Why Study These Methods?
Using a systematic information systems development method increases the
likelihood of project success. It serves as a "recipe" for how all individuals involved in
the project should interact and how their interactions should be managed.
Key People in an Information Systems Project
Customers
Project Owners
Programmers
Systems Analysts
Users
Communication and Control
Information systems development methodologies provide templates to control
communication between all stakeholders throughout the project lifecycle, from initial
conception and justification to eventual decommissioning.
Information Systems
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Definition of Information Systems
An information system eventually consists of bytes but uses abstractions to manage
its complexity.
Information systems facilitate business decision-making and serve as
business tools to help businesses run efficiently and effectively.
They support various tasks such as forecasting, planning, controlling, coordinating,
and providing services to customers.
Typical Tasks Supported by Information Systems
Decision-Making: Helping managers forecast.
Planning: Assisting in strategic and operational planning.
Control: Monitoring and regulating business activities.
Coordination: Facilitating collaboration among different parts of the
organization.
Customer Service: Supporting and enhancing services provided to
customers.## Information System Services
Information systems provide three core services:
Data collection, storage, and retrieval: Collecting data from transactions,
retrieving information like prices, and updating inventory levels. For example,
when you buy milk at Woolies, the system collects data from you, retrieves the
price, and decrements the number of milk cartons in stock.
Data transformation: Allowing users to view and analyze data. For instance, a
manager checking the quantity of milk in stock.
Data and information management: Using intelligent tools to track items
across different locations, like monitoring product sales across Sydney.
Why Information Systems Projects?
The primary reason for information systems projects is that the world is always
changing.
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New Business Imperatives: Implementing self-service checkouts required new
systems for data management and input devices.
Company Growth: Creating more efficient websites or expanding services
online.
Efficiency: Introducing systems to streamline operations.
Competitiveness: Integrating AI to lower prices and compete with other
companies.
Information systems projects often involve working with existing systems rather than
starting from scratch, adapting, changing behaviors, or adding new services to these
systems.
Types of Information Systems Projects
Adapting systems to meet new computing environments or technologies, such
as cloud services or AI.
Enhancing systems to implement new business requirements, like selling a new
product.
Making systems more interoperable with new systems, like self-service
checkouts.
Changing the architecture of systems, such as creating mobile interfaces for
banking services.
Information Systems Development
Methodologies
This subject focuses on information systems project management, potentially
enabling you to work as a project manager.
A project manager oversees project teams, which can range from small teams
using Agile Scrum to large teams working on major projects like the Sydney
Metro.
The methodology used depends on the project size.
Methodologies help develop projects systematically, considering future users
and installation.
Design Thinking
Design thinking is considered a problem-solving approach where you identify ways
of solving the problem.
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Design thinking approaches systems projects as life engineering
problems, where you solve a human problem with an information system.
Importance of Methodologies
Using appropriate information systems development methodologies increases the
probability of success by enabling risk management.
Risk Management: Methodologies help manage risks, increasing the likelihood
of project success.
Avoiding Failures: Failures can be costly.
Case Example: The Boeing 737 MAX disaster, where a faulty software system
led to pilots struggling during takeoff.
The Critical Nature of Information Systems
Information systems are critical systems, and it's important to get them right. There's
no guarantee that we will get them right because they're very complex and there are
humans that are part of it. Users could make mistakes and there may be
communication problems between people during development and after deployment.
Project Failures
There are various types of project failures:
Overrun: Things go beyond the limit, whether it's a time or money limit.
Misalignment with businesses: What's delivered is not exactly what the client
wants.
Outright failures: Disasters, like the 737 MAX or the Arian 5 crash.
Some alarming statistics:
The average large IT project runs 45% over budget and 7% over time.
One-sixth of IT projects end up costing double what had been budgeted and
almost run twice as much in terms of time.
45% of people admit that they are unclear on the business objectives of their IT
projects.
Only 34% say IT projects almost always deliver to the value of the business.
17% of large IT projects (meaning $15 million plus) go so badly that they
become an existential threat to the company.
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Risk Management
There are lots of business imperatives and risk management imperatives to make
sure that the information system project is successful (i.e. within budget and finished
on time). Successful means not just avoiding disasters but also that it delivers on
what was promised to the customer.
That is why we study information systems development methodologies.
Information System Development Method
An information system development method helps in project management and
knowledge management. It caters to the various stakeholders in the project
throughout the whole life cycle of the project.
Life Cycle of an Information System Project
1. Initiation: The start of the project. Things that you need to do include creating a
business case.
2. Analysis: To try and figure out what the system will do once it is developed.
This is also known as business requirement analysis.
3. Design: Draws a structural description of the system from an engineer's point
of view.
Talks about the components of the system, the software
components of the system, and the interfaces in the software
components. This is where the software architecture is developed.
4. Implementation: Programming where you take the design and produce an
implementation.
Choosing a Methodology
Depending on what your project is and how big it is, each one of these phases may
look different.
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Small project: Analysis and design may not be very consuming and the
initiation may be small. Lots of time may be spent on the implementation side
of things. You might use Scrum.
Large Project: The business case itself might last for 6-12 months and would
need consultants and lots of documentation. You certainly would not use
Scrum. You may use something like PRINCE2.
Stakeholders and Skills
One of the challenges in developing information systems projects is that each one of
these phases may need different skills.
Initiation: You may need business skills and risk management skills. The main
concern is the system owners' concerns.
These are the people paying the money, so they want to make sure
that they're going to get their money's worth.
This stage essentially tries to do a business case and project plan where at the
end of it, the system owners feel that they're going to be getting their money's
worth.
Analysis: The key stakeholders that people need to think of are the system
users.
Because the analysis produces the functionalities of the system,
essentially how the human beings interact with the system once it's
ready.
Different Views in System Design
The information systems development methods focus on different views of the
system:
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System users: Understanding their requirements is key. This can be achieved
through interviews or other means to identify what users want. However,
sometimes the users are unknown, which is common in design thinking.
System designers: Often business architects, such as software architects or
senior developers. They take the user requirements and create the system's
skeleton.
System builders: The programmers and developers who create and deploy the
system.
These different views require different skills in each phase of the development
process.
Skills of a Project Manager
Project managers may specialize in specific methodologies, but this can be risky.
The skills of a project manager must suit the project's needs.
Project management involves understanding the different phases of
development and how they integrate.
Different projects require project managers with different skills and
experiences.
There are industry courses and professional certifications for specific
methodologies like Scrum and Prince2.
A project manager's competency in a methodology enables them to deploy it
effectively, but the methodology's suitability depends on the project.
Business and Technology Drivers
Business drivers are most important to system owners and include the
competitiveness of the business.
Technology drivers lead to new projects, such as adopting mobile devices, AI,
or cloud technologies.
Technology drivers are more visible to system builders than business drivers.
Business and technology drivers are interconnected, especially for IT
consultants.
Method Engineering: Adapting Methodologies
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There is no one-size-fits-all methodology.
As a project manager, you must figure out the emphasis and important parts of
a methodology and identify missing components to borrow from other
methodologies.
Method engineering involves deciding on a method and having the discretion
to change it to suit the project by combining elements from different
methodologies.
Lightweight vs. Heavyweight Methodologies
Information systems development methods can be characterized by the amount of
documentation needed.
Lightweight methodologies:
Suited for small, agile projects with small teams (e.g., 5-6 people)
Involve fewer templates or omitting phases
Example: Scrum, which doesn't cover project initiation
Heavyweight methodologies:
Used for large projects with many people involved and high risk
Emphasize comprehensive documentation
Used when the risk appetite is low (e.g., when people's lives are at stake)
Examples: Prince2, RUP
The key takeaway is that no single method fits all, and it's crucial to adapt the
method to the project's needs.
Impact of Methodologies on Project Success
Here's a comparison of project success rates with and without methodologies:
Metric Without Methodologies With Methodologies
Meeting the Budget 31% 48%
Staying on Schedule 21% 28%
Meeting the Scope 61% 71%
Meeting Expected Benefits 51% 60%
Popularity of Scrum
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Scrum is the most popular methodology because there are many small projects.
More than 50% of IS projects are likely less than $10 million.
Large projects can be very expensive, reaching billions of dollars.
43% of projects use Scrum, reflecting the prevalence of small projects.
Methodology Selection Factors
When selecting a methodology, several key factors must be considered:
Budget: The overall financial resources allocated to the project.
Team size: The number of individuals involved in the project. For instance,
Extreme Programming (XP) is suitable for teams ranging from 6 to 20
members.
Risk appetite: The level of risk the organization is willing to accept. For high-
risk projects, methodologies like Prince2 may be preferred.
Project criticality: The significance and impact of the project on the
organization.
Technology used: The specific technologies employed in the project. If a
database is involved, the methodology should accommodate the need for a
database administrator.
Documentation: The extent of documentation required. Methodologies that
demand extensive documentation may not be suitable for all projects.
Training of people on the team: The level of familiarity and expertise of the
team members with the chosen methodology. If a methodology like Nexus is
unfamiliar, training may be necessary.
Tools and techniques: The existing tools, techniques, processes, and software
used by the organization.
Many companies customize their methodologies through a process known as method
engineering.
Methodologies vs. Approaches
A methodology consists of two main components:
Structure/Process Model: This defines how time is organized within the project
(e.g., Waterfall, Agile).
Work Product: This includes the templates and documentation provided.
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Methodologies are a combination of process models and work products.
Different methodologies can be created by using different work products
with the same process model (e.g., using different work products with a
Waterfall process model).
Project Manager Skills
University education alone does not make a strong project manager. Real-world
experience in project management is crucial. The technical skills required (e.g.,
coding) depend on the methodology used. For example, a project manager using
Prince2 may not need coding skills, while a project manager using XP should be
involved in coding.
Key qualities of a strong project manager:
Focus on process laws
Understanding of timeline organization
People management skills (recruiting and managing team members)
Strong project managers are highly valued and well-compensated, making it an
ambitious career path.
Quizzes and Exams
Quizzes will be testing.
Exams will likely cover most, but not necessarily all, lecture content. Details
about the exam will be discussed in the last lecture.
Software Development
This course is not a programming subject. Students may create interfaces to systems,
but the primary focus is not on software development.
Recordings
There will be no expiry date on the lecture recordings.
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