The feasibility study in information systems: an analysis of criteria and contents

Abstract

Abstract:The feasibility study has been prescribed and described as an important step in information system development. Yet there has been little research on issues pertaining to its con-tents and criteria. This paper addresses these issues and reports research from a quasi-experimental investigation using actual system development projects. The empirical results show that the two most important factors in a feasibility study are: convincing the users that the system they get will actually meet their functional requirements, and also that the system will work effectively within the organizational environment. A surprising result was the low importance attached by respondents to meeting the needs of the clerical personnel providing inputs to and handling the outputs from the system. Also. economic factors, which have been the focus of attention for many researchers. were ranked in the middle of all factors considered. Keywords: Feasibility studies, Cost/benefit analysis, User involvement. Quasi-experimental design. Life cycle methodologies, Transactional systems, Management information systems, Systems analysis and design, System evaluation. Article: IntroductionThe importance of the feasibility study has been stressed almost unanimously by most researchers and authors in the information systems field. For example, most text-book authors, researchers, and practitioner methodologies in the area of systems analysis and design identify the feasibility study as one of the important phases of the system development life cycle [10,[13][14][15][16][17]23,33,40,47,49]. In fact, in most organizations, it is common to include a feasibility study as part of any major system development, effort. In spite of this agreement, the research literature does not report much about feasibility studies. For example, Ives and Olson [24], while reviewing the " user involvement" literature, did not cite a single paper directly related to feasibility studies.In this paper, we address the central question: what should be the contents of a feasibility study? Prior research related to feasibility studies is either indirect or addresses only certain specific issues. The importance of the feasibility study is generally established in the context of the system development methodology [9,38,43] and the context of user/management involvement [11]. An aspect of feasibility studies which has received considerable attention is the cost/benefit analysis [19,26,32,42,48]. However, in these studies, other factors related to the feasibility study have been either sidestepped or lumped as intangibles. Many textbooks and research articles [e.g. 2, 22, 29] have advocated the consideration of other factors besides costs and benefits. Figure 1 1 is a summary of the factors and criteria listed in recent systems texts. The inclusion of factors in these works is based largely on common sense and intuition, and further there is no prioritization of the factors. One article [3] develops and evaluates several factors; however these factors relate specifically to...

Process and reality in information systems benefit analysis

“…Some empirical studies have considered the identification of benefits. For example, a quasiexperimental study assessed the criteria and content of a feasibility study for IS development projects for industry and academia (Palvia & Palvia, 1988). The study identified criteria (e.g.…”