An evaluation of the supportiveness of systems development methodologies to strategic goals during business process reengineering

[摘要] Professionals in system development have recognised and recommended the use of System Development Methodologies (SDMs) in South African organisations (Huisman and Iivari 2003). The first decade of South African independence has seen extensive restructuring of the Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to form Merged Higher Education Institutions (MHEIs). The effects of the mergers on the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) side of the MHEIs saw the restructuring and redirecting of previously individual HEI's strategic goals and business processes thereby invoking Business Process Reengineering (BPR). Professionals in BPR have also recognised the need for specific SDMs for BPR (Hammer and Champy 2005, Muthu, Whitman and Cheraghi 1999 and Giaglis 2009). This study aimed to evaluate the supportiveness of SDMs to strategic goals during BPR to find out whether they can be used as an effective artefact of change in MHEIs. The drive behind evaluating SDMs' organisational strategy support is basically informed by past research from BPR proponents that suggest that BPR has serious effects on the organisational strategy and that it is a process that needs a proper approach to be followed if it is to succeed. In Chapter 2, evaluations of SDMs were done to determine the extent to which SDMs accommodate organisational strategy as well the extent to which they match with BPR success factors. The evaluations showed that SDMs can be used for BPR to satisfy requirements to a certain degree, but no specific SDMs were identified for BPR. The assumption has been based on the fact that in all the SDMs evaluated, not all required BPR success factors and characteristics were traceable in a single SDM at once to qualify them to suit BPR purposes. Future research may therefore need to consider developing some SDMs specific to BPR that emphasise on organisational strategy and include the success factors and BPR characteristics discussed. Chapter 2 also revealed that there has been very little research, specifically relating the use of SDMs in BPR. Findings on the relationship between BPR, SDMs and strategy therefore still remain almost non–existent. To be able to establish the supportiveness of SDMs to strategic goals in practice during BPR, four South African MHEIs were identified for investigations. Qualitative analysis was done for the semi–structured interviews and documents which were used as data collection methods. A qualitative analysis tool called ATLAS.ti was used to analyse the transcribed interviews and then the cross case analysis technique was applied to generate similar patterns among the findings. The results gave an impression that SDMs are being either applied or recommended in MHEIs for BPR projects. However, none of the SDMs carried the required emphasis on strategic goals in all the phases and no specific SDMs were identified for BPR that carry full emphasis on strategic goals. Chapter 4 of this study revealed the results of the study and confirmed that universities still basically follow the Information Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC). Some universities have developed their own framework of tools and an organized collection of techniques from different types of SDMs where developers can pick and choose from for different development projects. Most universities IT departments have taken up the use of newer SDMs to try and address the changed and more complicated IT environments and businesses processes brought through the merger. Top managers emphasised their strong support for strategy in SDMs and developers believe in the consideration of organisational strategy although they are not directly involved in strategic issues.

[发布机构] North-West University