Stimulating power games as a part of systems development
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Stimulating power games as a part of systems development V Torvinen and K Jalonen Turku Centre for Computer Science TUCS, Laboris Research Group, University of Turku, Lemminka¨isenkatu 14A, 20520 Turku, Finland The biggest problems of information system development (ISD) are not in the construction of technical artefacts. The real challenges to development are the social and political aspects of change. Imagining new organizational structures is difficult because knowledge about existing structures is often objectified. Furthermore, the power structures of organizations make such imagination more difficult or even forbidden. This paper describes a study in which a prototype of an information systems (IS) development method, called the Labour Game, was evaluated in field experiments. The paper describes the method and demonstrates how it succeeded in shifting the focus of discussions from technical development to issues which typically increased the competence of employees and modified the power structures of the work processes. The paper advocates the use of ‘soft’ methods, which help users and managers to talk about the social structures of work and consequently about different IS requirements in the early phases of systems development.
Introduction One problem associated with information systems development (ISD) methodologies concerning the development of human activity may be due to too much attention being given at the beginning of the development project to information technology (IT). Instead, the main concern in the process of development should be the activity in which the IT is intended to be used. Even though almost all ISD methodologies stress the importance of the development of activity, it seems to be rare for methodologies to describe the development of activity in concrete terms. According to Hirschheim and Klein (1992), the ontological and epistemological background of ISD methodologies often reflects the positivistic paradigm: the world is seen as an objective reality, and its nature is better described as order than as conflict. From this perspective, the social structures of reality are ‘found’, ‘observed’ or ‘modelled’ rather than ‘interpreted’ or ‘re-created’. However, the basic challenge of any development should not be the creation of solutions following existing organizational premises and norms. Rather, development is a learning process, in which organizational premises should also be questioned (Bateson, 1972; Argyris & Scho¨n, 1978; Argyris, 1982). Furthermore, conflicting interests and power structures of work should also be analysed when questioning the premises of work. In this study, problems related to the analysis of user requirements were investigated following an experimental research strategy. The development activities of a case organization were observed for ten months. After
this period, field experiments were organised in the same organization in order to study de
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