The Usefulness of the Recommendations Regarding the Information System Development Method Selection during the Era of Digitalization

Abstract

The business criticality of information systems (IS) and their development (ISD) appear to have increased recently. Backsourcing, cosourcing and multisourcing of ISD are some of the consequences. They, in turn, extend the need for understanding how to select information systems development methods (ISDM). In this research, we first condensed the knowledge base of ISDM selection research into nine recommendations. We then interviewed 28 ISDM experts and asked them to evaluate how useful the extant ISDM selection recommendations of prior research are to IS user organizations. We discovered that most recommendations were perceived outdated and only limitedly useful. We finally contemplated that paying more attention to how ISDMs are used in business development contexts is a means to increase the usefulness of ISDM selection recommendations.