I now plan to look at what needs to be done in order to encompass the needs, concerns and experience of the intended users and user groups. Different types of knowledge possessed by different types of employees should be shared when ever possible during the development stage of a system. For example an end-user employee who has tacit knowledge can share this with a programmer or designer who has background knowledge and this will aid in the systems design. “Tacit knowledge may be reflected through personal exchanges between colleagues in the form of emails, memos, personal notes” (Bandyo-padhyay, 2002:135) “Whilst the availability of background knowledge depends on the ability of a leader to share it with others.” (Bandyo-padhyay, 2002:135) Another thing that should be done is a thorough requirements analysis to be carried out by the system designers. This will aid them in identifying the end-user requirements of the system and will give them targets to try and meet during the development. The development of the system should also have a collaborative effort behind it from all of the employees involved, from the directors, to the designers, to the end-users. This will avoid the system being designed from only one point of view, for example, the designers, and will stop the system from not being effective from other’s point of view.
I now intend to suggest a systems methodology that I think would be most appropriate for the Utility for the development of their Dispatch system. However, before I do so, I will first talk about the general difference between hard and soft approaches. Hard approaches focus on the technological aspects and regard the social aspects as less important. Therefore, they don’t take the user issues into account as much as they do the technical issues. “Hard approaches focus on the technology and the application, and ignore the people.” (Burton, 1992:71-72). A soft systems approach will concentrate more on the users then the technology and views the social aspects as of higher importance than the technical aspects. The user’s needs and issues and focused on and held above everything else. “Later on soft systems methodology was introduced which took account of multiple perceptions of a problem by users with different needs.” (Bandyo-padhyay, 2000:212)
The systems methodology I would recommend for the Utility is Effective Technical and Human Implementation of Computer-Based Systems (ETHICS). Underneath this, I would more specifically recommend Participatory Design (PD) as this also falls under Ethics, however I will discuss Ethics first and then PD. Ethics is a methodology created by Enid Mumford around 15 years ago, he has been developing it ever since. It is what is known as a participative approach, with participation of the end-users being a focal point. Hirschheim defines participation in terms of systems development as the following: “A type of systems development approach where the users take the lead in (and often control of) the development process, and where the substance of development is expanded to include social and organisational concerns, eg. job design, decision making responsibilities, reporting relationships and the like.” (Hirschheim in Knight, 1989:196)
Main objectives for the users of Ethics are things such as improved job satisfaction and improved quality of working life. (Avison, Fitzgerald, 1988:230) It is based on a socio-technical view, and we can see just from the title of this view that it is an attempt to take into account both technological and social aspects, not just focusing on one or the other. As stated above, the fact that the methodology looks closely at job satisfaction and quality of working life means that it takes into account many of the user-related issues that are lacking in hard system approaches, making it more efficient than a hard system approach. “In addition, it encompasses the socio-technical view, that for a system to be effective the technology must fit closely with the social and organizational factors.” (Avison, Fitzgerald, 1988:230)
The general process for the way in which Ethics is carried out is as follows: a small number of the users are chosen, the users are chosen from not just one level of the organisation, but from different levels with the purpose of obtaining a broad/wide sample. This group is named the user design group and plays the main role in terms of the user participation during the development of the new system. This group, under the guidance of management and perhaps a steering group, analyses the workplace environment as well as the different work processes that go on within it. This provides the social view of the approach. While they are doing this, they are in constant consultation with technical experts that will eventually build the new system based on the user design group’s analysis, and this provides the technological view of this approach.
I think Ethics would be appropriate for the Utility in that it would ensure that the IS staff do not produce a system that the Dispatch staff are unhappy with, as the Dispatch staff will be involved in the development, informing the IS staff of how the work procedures are carried out as well as what the working environment is like. This will enable IS staff to develop a system accurate to the user needs. This kind of approach, because of its collaborative nature, will also help in eliminating the current conflicts between IS and Dispatch staff, as they would be working together as a single unit in order to develop an efficient system that is appropriate for its purpose. Therefore the ‘us against them’ view that is currently present between these two employee groups at the Utility will be decreased.
Ethics has three major principles which are the following:
1. Future users are enabled to play a major role in the design of a new system and are able to take responsibility for designing the structure of the work that surrounds the technology.
2. It is ensured that new systems are acceptable to the users because they both increase user efficiency and job satisfaction.
3. Users are assisted so that they become increasingly competent in managing their own organisational change so that this activity can be shared with technical specialists and this will then reduce demands on decreasing amounts technical resources.
(Schuler, Namioka, 1993:259)
As can be seen from the above principles, Ethics is effective at developing sufficient systems to fulfil desired roles because it allows users to play a large part in the design and also to think about the structure of the technology they are to use. This means that a successful system would be produced at the Utility because the Dispatch workers would be designing a system for their own use, meaning they have knowledge of the work carried out that designers will lack, and will be able to put this knowledge into the development. As well as this, Dispatch staff will be able to be responsible for how the technology of the system will work. “More importantly, they (end-users) have the skills of knowing about their own work and system, and have a stake in the design. This is much more than many traditional analysts and designers.” (Avison, Fitzgerald, 1988:241) This also generates another advantage in that the organisation will not have to spend as much time and resources training the Dispatch workers in how to use the new system because they will already have a good idea of how it work as they partly designed the technology for it.
As the second principle shows us, the use of Ethics will also ensure that the system is well accepted by the end-users as the system will directly and clearly create improvements in user efficiency and job satisfaction respectively. A positive acceptance of the new system by the end-users is an extremely important factor in terms of the system being a success or failure. The third principle demonstrates to us that the use of Ethics means that users will be assisted by management and technical staff making them competent in the ability to manage their own organisational change. This means Dispatch staff will become more confident in how to handle the organisational change that’s involved in developing a new system, and confidence can result in a higher work rate. This task would also be shared between the Dispatch and IS staff, meaning Dispatch will not have to make so many demands on technical resources as the IS staff will be present sharing the management of the organisational change.
Ethics was used in the National Health Service (NHS) as they want to introduce a new comprehensive computer-based system with the purpose of improving the management of resources by securing better information on how resources are used and how use affects cost. A small, representative group of nurses were chosen to be the user design group. To get a wide sample to ensure that the system was not designed only taking into account one group of nurses point of view, nurses from three different levels in British hospitals were chosen. These were sisters and charge nurses, staff nurses, and enrolled nurses. The user design group’s analysis of the workplace environment and work procedures consisted of the following: the nurses had meetings where supervised discussions were held, the nurses were all given Ethics works books to fill in and were required to state things such as a mission statement as well as a set of key tasks and objectives, the nurses were required to document things such as the tasks they had to perform on a regular basis, what they spent most time on, and their frequent and most serious problems. The nurses were then given sets of questions to answer in order to gain more information on their views. At the end of this project, the results were evaluated and were found to be a success. Ethics had allowed the nurses to be very aware of the importance of good information and also helped them to state where this was needed. It had also given them a certain amount of control over the development of the new computer system and in the future they would be able to monitor its performance and suggest improvements. (Schuler, Namioka, 1993:264-267)
As we can see from the case study I have just described, Ethics can be extremely useful to organisations as far as new systems development is concerned and it proves that the methodology works. The same concept could be applied to the Utility for the development of the Dispatch system. A main advantage of such a large amount of user participation is that Dispatch workers will feel more committed and confident to the use of a new system and as a result, produce a higher work rate if they feel that they have been part of the systems design and held a key role. Many methodologies, especially those associated with the conventional approach give the users hardly any control what so ever over new technology that is being developed and as a result are almost forced to adapt to the changes that occur as a result of it. Ethics would provide the Dispatch workers with a way of maintaining control over the introduction of new technology. Another large advantage is that it would make a public demonstration of the knowledge and skills possessed by the Dispatch worker therefore IS staff would become more likely to treat them equally rather than just as end-users, which would decrease conflicts.
I now intend to discuss a particular Ethics tool known as Participatory Design (PD) which could also be very useful for the Utility. “Participatory design implies that workers as users of computer products take part in the decisions that affect the system and the way it is designed and used. Because technology is not developed in isolation, participation in decisions about technology also involves decisions about work content and job design.” (Schuler, Namioka, 1993:28) The above quote shows us that system designers, when developing a system, must make decisions on the technology used, but in order to do this they need knowledge of the work content. Obviously this is something they do not possess, this is possessed by the end-users and their participation will help the designer to make a system that exactly fits the needs of the employees who will use it. The Dispatch workers would be able to help the IS staff to design a system that is useful to them and fulfils their own requirements.
This kind of methodology poses advantages for all three of the main work groups of an organisation. For managers, it enables them to get out of the spot-light if a system goes wrong are not be help fully responsible. For users, it enables them to increase their knowledge of the work place and to feel more integrated with it. For systems designers, it quite simply allows them to create better systems. (Schuler, Namioka, 1993:34) As a result, we can see that PD is not only beneficial for the Dispatch workers, but for the Utility as a whole. Another advantage for the Utility that PD offers is that even after the new system had been implemented, Dispatch workers would be able to make changes or alterations to the system themselves as and when their needs change since they would have the knowledge to do so, thanks to their participation in the design of it. A main focus of PD is on the concept of workplace democracy. The idea is that, currently, there is generally a lack of democracy within the workplace as decisions are usually made by empowered individuals such as management. As PD concentrates of all parts of the organisation participating in the design and the end-users actually making decisions, rather than just being affected by them, the idea of workplace democracy becomes possible. This is a good thing as it means the design of the system will not just take into account certain parts of the Utility, but all parts of it. “The road from participatory design to workplace democracy can be built, in part, on the base of successful participatory design projects.” (Schuler, Namioka, 1993:36)
To take gender issues into account, in the past, the use of conventional methods towards systems design has meant that the views and needs of females have been severely overlooked. This is because the conventional approach focuses mainly on the technology and ignores the users. The fact that it ignores the users means that user requirements do not get taken into account, and female user requirements especially do not get taken into account as they did not hold a strong position in the technological world in the first place. The reason being because the conventional idea of the woman was to stay behind at home and not to go out to work, technology was considered the males domain, the home the female’s domain. “The definition of information technology systems by conventional processes has signally failed women in the workplaces.” (Webster, 1996:148)
For example, when a decision is being made about what system is needed, perhaps management are making part of the decision. As management jobs are mainly taken by men, again because of the old conventional view of the woman, the needs of the females will not be represented in the decision that it made because there are not enough women present in management. As I have mentioned earlier, a focal factor of PD is that everyone participates and everyone is treated equally. Also, that PD follower’s are striving towards a democratic workplace. This means PD would be good for woman in terms of systems design because woman would no longer be treated as inferior to men since the idea is that everyone is equal and the workplace is democratic. PD states that all participants make decisions regarding the design of the new system. This means that finally, women would be included in the decision making and their needs will go represented in the decision making process. This means that in the Utility, the female worker’s needs are more likely to be met if PD is used.
To conclude, we have seen that the conventional, hard approach to systems development would be unsuitable for the Utility. A more soft approach such as the one have discussed would be much more appropriate in terms of designing a successful system. Methodologies such as Ethics along with its tools like PD offer a variety of advantages and could solve many of the potential problems the Utility could have with the design of the Dispatch system. Conflicts can be partially resolved, as well as a better system being designed in general. I would highly recommend Ethics to the Utility and think they would be wise to give it strong consideration.
Bibliography
Books:
‘Computing for Non-specialists’, Bandyo-padhyway, N, 2000, Essex: Pearson Education
‘E-Commerce’, Bandyo-padhyay, N, 2002, Berkshire: McGraw-Hill Education
‘Information Systems Development’, Avison, D, Fitzgerald, G, 1988, Oxford: Blackwell Scientific Publications
‘A Level Information Technology’, Heathcote, P, 1998, Ipswich: Payne-Gallway Publishers
‘Participatory Design’, Schuler, D, Namioka, A, 1993, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
‘Shaping Women’s Work’, Webster, J, 1996, Essex: Addison Wesley Longman
‘Participation in Systems Development New York’, Knight, K, 1989, New York: Kogan Page
Articles:
‘Collaboration and Conflict in the Development of a Computerized Dispatch Facility’, Clement, A, Halonen, C, 1998, Journal of the American Society for Information Science
