Toward a Unified Model of Information Systems Development Success

Abstract

Information systems development (ISD) is a complex process involving interconnected resources, stake holders, and outcomes. Understanding factors contributing to ISD success has attracted keen interest from both researchers and practitioners, and many research studies have been published in this area. However, most studies focus on one or two factors affecting ISD success. A holistic view of factors impacting ISD success is missing. This paper synthesizes past research on the topic and proposes a unified model on ISD success through a systematic and comprehensive literature review. The unified model highlights that ISD is a complex and interactive process involving individual, team, and organization factors, as well as ISD methodology. These factors impact the ISD process as well as its success.

Antecedents and Consequences of Time Pressure in Scrum Projects: Insights from a Qualitative Study

“…While moderate levels of time pressure are likely to be beneficial, high levels of time pressure are counterproductive. In general, many aspects of time pressure's impact on software projects remain unexplained [24], and the relationship between time pressure and software projects is more complex than it might seem at first glance [5].…”

The emergence of shared understanding: applying functional pragmatics to study the requirements development process

“…Successful knowledge transfer (Joshi et al ., 2007), mutual understanding (Tan, 1994), and communication (Gallivan & Keil, 2003) are major factors that affect ISD success (Siau et al ., 2010). One of the key success factors relates to bridging the so‐called ‘communication gap’ between users and developers, who are characterised by different cultures, communities and jargons (Boland, 1978; Kaiser & Bostrom, 1982; Gallivan & Keil, 2003).…”

“…However, although ISD has often been investigated from a macro‐level perspective (e.g. Robey & Newman, 1996; Gallivan & Keil, 2003; Xia & Lee, 2005; Lyytinen & Newman, 2008), the details of social interactions in ISD are still not well understood (Sawyer et al ., 2010), and the process as such ‘has received relatively little research attention’ (Siau et al ., 2010). Not many studies go beyond ISD methodologies, and there is a general paucity of theory and studies of organisational and social processes (Kautz et al ., 2007) and how they evolve from a micro‐level perspective (Marakas & Elam, 1998).…”

“…Among the different socially related issues in ISD, the ‘communication gap’ between the involved stakeholders is an important factor (Kaiser & Bostrom, 1982; Siau et al ., 2010). Although many different methods are suggested as having a positive impact on this gap (Byrd et al ., 1992), there are few studies that examine this claim or investigate how the respective social interactions unfold (e.g.…”

“…Our goal in this paper is to open the ‘black box’ (Siau et al ., 2010) of ISD as a social process. To do so, we propose to investigate ISD as a ‘language development and formalization process’ (Lyytinen, 1985).…”