Controlling Iterative Software Development Projects: The Challenge of Stakeholder and Technical Integration Bendik Bygstad Norwegian School of IT Schweigaardsgate 14 0185 Oslo Norway bendik.bygstad@nith.no Abstract Most IS projects today are not greenfield projects, but relate heavily to existing information infrastructures and business processes. How should the development process integrate with the business process? This is a crucial question, because a project that does not integrate with the business processes will be a failure, even if the software which is produced is well designed and programmed. The Software Engineering community has embraced iterative process frameworks, like the Rational Unified Process. These frameworks claim to support a step-wise integration of the business process and the development process This paper explores and analyses the managerial challenges of integration in such projects. Building on a longitudinal case study and an analysis of the Rational Unified process, four types of integration are identified and analyzed: External and internal stakeholder integration, and internal and external technical integration. Finding that the external integration mechanisms are just as critical at the internal, the paper concludes that the integration challenge is complex, partly outside the control of the project manager and not supported sufficiently in the RUP framework. A theory extension to RUP is suggested. 1. Introduction Most IS projects today are not greenfield projects, but relate heavily to existing information infrastructures and business processes [5]. This affects the development of information systems in a fundamental way, making integration issues equally important as user requirements. A new system must relate to an existing information infrastructure; an often large installed base of systems, networks, users and routines [12], to which it becomes an extension. An important contribution from the Business Processing Reengineering (BPR) movement was the focus on business processes. Business processes refer to the unique ways in which organizations coordinate work, information and knowledge, and are an important source of competitive advantage [20]. A business process may be defined as an ordered set of activities that creates value for a customer, on a relatively high level; typically, there are 10-20 processes within a company [6]. Most information systems are developed to support a business process, whether the scope is a dramatic process transformation or process improvement. How should the development process integrate with the business process and the information infrastructure? This is an important question, because a project that does not integrate with the business process will be a failure, even if the software which is produced is well designed and programmed. Implementing change in business processes is an integration challenge [6, 29]. In simplified terms, successful implementation must be holistic, integrating both people, organizations and technology. But how should it be done in practice? Ideally, the process models of BPR and IS development should answer this question. Unfortunately, the BPR community never really developed a full methodology for this integration [10]. During the late 1990s the software engineering community embraced iterative process frameworks, like the Rational Unified Process (RUP) [14], OPEN [13] and Catalysis [8], and also agile approaches like Extreme Programming [2]. The growing practice communities contend that these frameworks have the potential to integrate the business process and the development process through step-wise stakeholder and technical integration [1, 17]. The basic Proceedings of the 37th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 2004 0-7695-2056-1/04 $17.00 (C) 2004 IEEE 1 Authorized licensed use limited to: Chalmers University of Technology. Downloaded on September 7, 2009 at 09:57 from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.