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Introduction
In information systems development (ISD) projects, three parties must understand each other’s knowledge domains for the project to proceed seamlessly and efficiently. These are the project manager, the development team and the business users. Project management and system development each have their own methodologies to work with while business users have the knowledge and deep understanding of the enterprise’s business objectives that are relevant to the project. One can liken their relationship as a triangle when each has to relate well to the other two.
Project Management, Systems Development and Business Users
The three sides have challenges in working with the others. The users need to make sure that all their requirements are understood precisely and the system’s planned functionalities will fully address those requirements. Part of the assurance is the understanding of the development process which if implemented according to the right understanding of the requirements, will produce the correct results. The users need to understand the project management process so they will know when they should invest more effort considering their limited time. The development team needs to be sure that the system’s functionalities will be fully accepted by the users. It must understand the business objectives and their relative weight in the enterprise. It must also be understand enough of the project methodology so they can better appreciate and cooperate with the non-IT tasks that the project manager will be driving. The project manager must understand the stages of the system development methodology so he can incorporate it with the project methodology and also ensure that satisfaction levels between users and developers are high all throughout the project.
User Involvement in Core Development Activities
Most ISD literature would have these activities in the standard development life cycle (SDLC): planning or initial study, analysis, design, implementation (building and testing) and maintenance. Other ISD methodologies would have different phases but they would still retain the main elements and need for user involvement. Typically, user involvement would be intense in planning, analysis and testing.
Involvement during Planning
The project proponent needs to call-in the end-users to validate if the IS project idea and its benefits can truly be experienced by through the system will be built (Sun, 2013). The focus will on the operational aspect of the system. The users will be given a vision on what the system will do broadly for them and they must provide an assessment on improvements on results and operational efficiency.
Involvement during Analysis
Once the project has been approved, more users will be involved for the development team to work with. Systems analysts will work with them to break down the broad requirements into more specific ones and in the process, discover more (Sun, 2013). It is in this phase that users need to have a deliberate shift in mindset as “outsiders” will have chances to discover weaknesses in their processes; some might even be worse enough to throw a bad light on them, in the eyes of management. To be truly productive, users must lead analysts to all relevant sources of data and provide validation.
The user is most valuable for the project working in the analysis phase. Users and their managers must allow as much time when requested by analysts. The quality of the system will only be as good as the completeness and accuracy of requirements.
Involvement during Design
This activity is where the work starts to get technical and the user usually is not involved but often, analysts have to revisit requirements upon the prompt of designers. In the process, analysts may also go back to users for more clarification or a discussion of a new approach (Sun, 2013). Continuous user involvement is a norm in other development methodologies like Agile and Rapid Application Development; its benefits can also be enjoyed in SDLC if it can be allowed to be more flexible.
Users must assume of this likelihood and set aside time for contingency. When opportune, they must also be willing to learn the basics of systems design to be able to comment and confirm that the design is indeed being faithful to the requirements. Input screens and database designs can be made understandable for users to comment on.
Involvement during Implementation
Implementation is comprised of coding and testing. Coding is one activity where users cannot participate because it is the most technical but testing is where they can be as active as in analysis. Users observe and use the system or parts of it to confirm that its functionality is as planned. The programmers usually ask this from users only when the system or major subsystems have been completed but the newer methodologies like RAD and Agile encourage user involvement in any kind of testing at any time. Allowing this would prevent work done to be discarded. In particular, the user acceptance testing activity would be formal and would involve even user managers (Sun, 2013). This is where system acceptance by the users will take place.
Involvement during Maintenance
This is the phase where the system has been rolled-out into production and users are using it en masse. Logical defects can still occur but the most likely problem that rises is that of performance as all users are now using the system. Users will be exploring all available features of the system out of need or just by curiosity and by that, some bugs may be discovered. New ideas and feedback may still be passed on by users who have been involved for the first time (Sun, 2013). Users are required to attend user training programs before they can use the system. They are also expected to use the formal change control procedures to officially request changes to the system to correct defects or to introduce improvements.
Software Development Complementing with Project Management
Software methodologies are effective enough to stand on their own to deliver few and simple software products or functional changes but they can become unsuitable for complex projects which require many unique business requirements. They will need to be guided or governed by project management to assure that project outcomes will be complete and correct. Project management will help shield the development effort from much coordinating work with end-users. We can look at the Agile software development methodology and how it can work with a common project methodology like PRINCE2 to illustrate the point. Agile’s fluidity can create risks for large complex projects but it can be managed by PRINCE2’s disciplined approach (BCS, n.d.).
The strength of PRINCE2 is that it is principles based and can be customizable to adapt to any software methodology. Its rigorous procedures and documentation abide to these principles and these are permitted to change as long as they abide to these principles:
Continued business justification
Learning from experience
Defined roles and responsibilities
Managing by stages
Managing by exception
Focusing on products
Tailoring to the project environment
(BCS, n.d.)
In practice, PRINCE2 monitors the constantly changing activities of Agile projects and keeps it framed in stages and work packages for the understanding of users and project owners. It monitors Agile activities and objectives making sure that they are still within the bounds of the project’s business objectives. It also captures project knowledge that is being accumulated in the Agile implementation. Often, it is difficult to document fast-moving Agile projects and PRINCE2 can fill this deficiency.
Aligning ISD Projects with Business Strategy and Goals
Alignment between two frameworks requires a reaction to an action. ISD projects usually take the lead from business objectives right at the onset. During the feasibility and planning stage, the business objectives are stated and clarified to the ISD team and the latter confirms understanding and accepts. It is possible that there may be discoveries during the analysis stage that may affect the viability of some objectives and these must be raised as issues by the analysts to the project manager and users. As a result, either business objectives or ISD strategy may be modified to realign the incongruence. Alignment goes both ways: the results of ISD projects must fulfill business objectives and the implementation of business objectives must be within the technical capability of existing ISD technologies.
Business review meetings are the opportunities for business-IS alignment to be validated in ISD projects. In PRINCE2, there is the benefits review plan which will track the completion of system components that can already demonstrate business benefits (Litten, 2016). This is made after the approval of the business case and can be the bases for user review meetings that can be called at the end of the project stages.
References
BCS The Chartered Institute for IT. (n.d.). Agile and PRINCE2 And how they integrate. Swindon, UK: Measey, P.
Litten, D. (2016, February 27). Benefits Review Plan. Retrieved August 12, 2016 from https://www.prince2primer.com/benefits-review-plan/
Sun, Z. (2013). Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Compuyer Science and Electronics Engineering. Paris: Atlantic Press.
