Traditional, iterative, and component-based development: A social analysis of software development paradigms

  • Authors:

  • Daniel Robey;Richard Welke;Daniel Turk

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Computer Information Systems, P.O. Box 4015, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA 30302-4015, USA E-mail: drobey@gsu.edu;Department of Computer Information Systems, P.O. Box 4015, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA 30302-4015, USA;Colorado State University, USA

  • Venue:
  • Information Technology and Management
  • Year:
  • 2001

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Abstract

Information systems have always been developed through social processes, wherein actors playing a variety of specialized roles interact to produce new business applications of information technology. As systems development practices continue to evolve, an ongoing assessment of their social implications is required. This paper develops a framework for understanding the potential social implications of an emerging, component-based development paradigm. Like two alternative paradigms for systems development, the traditional life-cycle and the iterative-incremental paradigms, the new component-based paradigm requires that certain generic roles be performed to build a desired application. For each paradigm, we identify the actors who play different roles, specify the nature of their interdependence, and indicate the requirements for managing conflicts constructively. The framework may guide research into the social dynamics of system development and serve as a tentative guide to the management of information systems development.