The underlying perspectives of Information Systems Design Methodologies

The following article is an updated version based on  Ho (1996):


There are a number of ways to classify Information Systems Design (ISD) Methodologies: Connor (1985) classifies conventional ISD, e.g. Information Engineering, Structured Analysis and Jackson System Development (JSD) approaches, amongst others, in terms of how effective they are in coping with the time and cost constraints, the ease of comprehension by users, and the level of complexity of the design requirements of a system. Hirschheim (1985) discerns the differences between analytical or "hard mathematical" approaches used in many conventional ISD and those approaches based on social or human perspectives. Examples of approaches based on social perspectives include Pava's (1983) Sociotechnical Systems Design Methodologies, and Checkland's (1981) Soft Systems Methodology (Also see Wilson, 1984 and Stowell, 1995). Hirschheim's classification emphasises the differences between the objective and subjective approaches of the social sciences. The differences between the two approaches have been discussed by Burrell and Morgan (1979) in terms of ontology, epistemology, human nature, and assumptions about the nature of society. From a Multi-perspective, Systems-based perspective, the main ISD approaches and concepts can be grouped according to three perspectives:

The unitary perspective: ISD concepts that are based on the unitary perspective are principally concerned with the engineering process of ISD; however the logical ISD specifications can be translated into their physical counterparts (e.g. Connor, 1985; Crowe, 1993), and how to make use of various Information Technology levers to redesign superior business processes, see Davenport and Short (1990) and Hammer and Champy (1993).

The pluralist perspective: ISD based on the pluralist perspective are participatory, intersubjective and rather idealistic in approach. Instead of concentrating on how Information Technology (IT) is to transform organizational structures and processes, relatively more attention is spent on (a) the "cultural analysis to understand the organizational consequence of IT (Robey and Azevedo, 1994) and (b) the interpretative nature of understanding and the situatedness of the users of the IT/ISD tools (Westrup, 1994). Representative ISD approaches are the Soft Systems Methodology of Checkland (1981) and the Interpretative Data Modelling approach of Lewis (1993), see Stowell (1995).

The critical perspective: ISD based on the critical perspective pay special attention to achieve social and ethical acceptability, both in the process and end-product of ISD, see Butera, Martino and Kohler (1990) for a discussion on the psychosocial problems arising from the employment of IT. They are also concerned with the issue  and essence of power as well as how this influences the setting-up of conditions in which "genuine" participation and consensus of ISD can take place, see Mingers (1992) and Jackson (1991). ISD methodologies based on this perspective cannot as yet be regarded as mature. One example is that of Probert (1993) who grounds his Information Systems Methodology on Foucault's "genealogical" method and "Interpretive analytics" of Dreyfus and Rabinov (1982).




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