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Information Systems Frontiers 4:3, 273–284, 2002C© 2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Manufactured in The Netherlands.

Navigating the Gap Between Action and a ServingInformation System

Donna ChampionThe Business School, Loughborough University, Loughborough,Leics, LE11 3TU, UKE-mail: [email protected]

Frank StowellDe Montfort University, Kents Hill, Milton Keynes, MK7 6HP, UKE-mail: [email protected]

Abstract. Creating, or adapting, information systems to supportpeople undertaking purposeful action in organizational settingsinvolves moving from: exploring the problem situation and think-ing about what action to take, to thinking about how to supportthat action. In business settings this support will inevitably entailtechnology-based information systems. Most information systemdesign approaches neglect the importance of the initial explo-ration and sense making phase and move directly to specifying thebusiness process to be operationalised through the applicationof some software. The ideas described here have been developedwith the intention of supporting a group of people navigating aninquiry through the shift in focus from: thinking about action, tothinking about support in a manner that promotes Client-led in-formation system design. The ideas have been applied in practicethrough an Action Research field study in a UK banking orga-nization and here we describe our navigational approach to ISdesign.

Key Words. interpretive, Client-led, information systems design,conversation modelling

Introduction

In this paper, we describe a practical, coherent ap-proach to Client Led information system developmentunderpinned by interpretive assumptions, that hasbeen applied in practice in the Debt ManagementOperations section of a UK bank. The work describedin this paper has been carried out as part of theSEBPC (1996) managed research program for theproject “A Unified Mechanism for Information SystemDefinition” (UMISD, 1998). The aim of the researchwas to find means of supporting those involved in the

situation of focus, the clients, in leading the informationsystem (IS) design process. One of the fundamentalchallenges of undertaking IS design is the need to findsome means of moving from methods of inquiry suitedto sense making in social situations, to methods suitedto organizing knowledge into a suitable format forthe construction of a logical specification for any sup-porting technology. Many authors have discussed thesuitability of using Soft Systems Methodology (SSM)(Checkland, 1981; Checkland and Scholes, 1990,1999) to support initial sense making in a problemof concern, but problems have been encountered inlinking up with methods for constructing technologicalspecifications (Doyle, Wood, and Wood-Harper, 1993;Lai, 2000; Liang, West, and Stowell, 1998; Mathiassenand Nielsen, 2000; Miles, 1988; Prior, 1992; Savageand Mingers, 1996; Stowell and West, 1994). Mostapproaches to creating such a link have attempted tocreate some sort of bridge between the first phase ofinquiry, exploration and sense making and the secondphase, constructing a logical specification. We arguethat attempts to create a bridge between methods ofsense making in social situations and methods for cre-ating technological specifications are somewhat ambi-tious. The ideas described here, offer some intellectualdevices to support those involved in a process of infor-mation system design in navigating through the gapbetween creating ideas for action and creating a logicalspecification for support, in a logically sound and co-herent manner. First we briefly set out the assumptionsand foundations of Client Led information systemdesign.

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Foundations

The ideas in this paper are underpinned by interpre-tive assumptions. Adopting such a stance, means act-ing according to the idea that reality is continuously so-cially constructed with each human actor creating his,or her, own individual meanings and possessing his, orher, own viewpoint (Burrell and Morgan, 1979). Cru-cially, regarding social reality as being continuouslyconstructed by the actors involved, means that when un-dertaking information systems design, the ‘users needs’are not assumed to have some pre-existence wait-ing only to be discovered by the developers (Boland,1985). Any requirements for a technology-based infor-mation system will be created during the design pro-cess through the interactions of those involved (Boland,1985; Winograd and Flores, 1987). Approaches to in-formation system design underpinned by these assump-tions can be regarded as being exploration-oriented,as the concern is to make sense of the situation fromthe point of view of actors involved in the situation ofconcern. This contrasts sharply with an attempt be-ing made to describe reality and define an optimaltechnical solution to any perceived difficulties, as isthe aim during information system design based onmethods from engineering and underpinned by a sci-entific approach to inquiry (Stowell and Champion,2000).

For the work described in this paper, an informa-tion system is assumed to be a system to serve pur-poseful action; this definition was first provided byCheckland and Scholes (1990, p. 54) and is also dis-cussed in Winter, Brown, and Checkland (1995). Usingthis definition, a process of information system designcan be described as a process of inquiry that involvesfirst creating some ideas for some desired purposefulaction (or willed action by a group of human beings)and moving toward some ideas for a system to serve thataction (or purposive action). Checkland (1981, p. 119)explains the difference between purposeful and pur-posive with the example of a clock: “the escapementis a purposive system of a clock; telling the time byreading the dial of a clock is a purposeful action bya human being”. Information systems are purposivesystems serving some purposeful action undertaken byhuman beings.

Currently, one of the inherent difficulties in under-taking information system design is the need to movefrom a method suited to undertaking sense making

(Checkland and Scholes, 1990) in human organiza-tional settings to the sort of methods and techniquesthat have been created to facilitate the construction oflogical specifications for software. Most approachesto information system design place the emphasis onconstructing some sort of description of the businessprocess to be supported and then move on to con-structing a description of the required functionalityfor a technology-based information system to supportthat process (Checkland, 1995; Stowell and Champion,2000). One of the fundamental obstacles to movingfrom an approach to sense making within social set-tings to designing software-driven technology-basedinformation systems seems to be the manner in whichdifferent groups of people involved in the inquiry pro-cess use any models created. Models constructed bysoftware developers are usually attempts to representsome real world activity and so the models created are“used as surrogates for the real world” (Checkland,1995, p. 49, Checkland’s italics). The danger in thisapproach is that using models as if they are capableof representing real world human action results in aperilous oversimplification and inevitably any designscreated using such approaches, once implemented, failto match the complexity of the human social situation(Vickers, 1965).

Lewis (1993) offered the view that data-focussedapproaches to information systems design employ datamodels that are used in practice as epistemological de-vices that offer “. . . a coherent means of investigatingthe problem domain rather than being a description ofthe real world”. In discussing the use of data-modelsfor the purpose of constructing technology-based in-formation systems, Lewis argues that:

. . . however well researched and rigourous are thetechniques for manipulation and refinement of theconceptual data model, they ultimately rely upon asubjective and interpretive identification of entitiesor objects (Lewis, 1993, p. 180).

Lewis (1993) suggests that: data analysis and data mod-elling can be regarded as “a process of reality creation”.Stowell and West (1994) also place emphasis on the im-portance of facilitating a cycle of learning and the useof intellectual devices to facilitate those involved increating a shared appreciation of the situation of focus.The difficulty seems to arise from the use of the modelsas “surrogates” (Checkland, 1995), which can lead tothe models being given more status than is due. Indeed,

Navigating the Gap Between Action and a Serving Information System 275

Vickers (1981) refers to this tendency to place undueconfidence in any models constructed as “hypnosis bymodels”.

The data models and object models created as a pre-cursor to software construction are devices to facilitatethe marshalling of knowledge into a suitable format forthe task at hand, in other words these devices are usedfor the purpose of sense making. These intellectual de-vices are simply applied to a different phase of the de-sign process, a phase where those involved decide whatto build. What is needed in a process of informationsystems design is some means to facilitate the neces-sary shifts in thinking, from a focus on what purposefulaction to take, through to a focus on how might that ac-tion unfold, before thinking about what support mightbe required. These shifts in focus must be obvious to allthose involved; so open discussion can occur. The no-tion of navigating the gap by using various intellectualdevices (referred to as navigational devices) providesthose undertaking IS design with a means of creat-ing a route, or learning a way through, from any ideasfor action, to the requirements for a technology-basedinformation system to serve the action. The so-callednavigational devices are intended to facilitate the nec-essary discussion for this phase of debate and learning.

In addition, the intellectual devices employed withinthe navigational phase are intended to maintain thesense of coherence from the ideas for purposeful actionthrough to the serving activities. One of the criticismslevelled at previous attempts to move from conceptualactivity models created during SSM guided inquiryto a logical design for an information system usingData Flow Diagrams, was the abrupt change from con-ceptualising action to conceptualising data (Doyle andWood, 1991; Mingers, 1995). It is important that theshift in the focus of the inquiry is obvious to those in-volved, whilst at the same time maintaining a sense ofcoherence throughout the inquiry process. To achievecoherence, it has been argued elsewhere that it is de-sirable for the navigational devices used to provide asimilar view to that created during the sense makingphase of inquiry (Champion and Stowell, 2001).

The ideas created throughout the progress of this re-search have been published in the academic literatureand these papers form a chronicle of the learning, as itunfolded (Champion and Stowell, 1999a, 1999b, 2000;Stowell and Champion, 2000, 2002). The ideas wereused to guide inquiry in an Action Research field studyto enable the practical value to be evaluated. Those in-terested in a full account of the planning for the field

study, are referred to Champion (2000). This paper de-scribes the modelling method used in practice to nav-igate from some ideas for purposeful action, to someideas for the technology-based support for that action.

Navigation

When employing SSM as a guide for inquiry, there are anumber of established devices that can support reflec-tion on the consequences of implementing the ideasfor action. For example, conceptual activity models,and the elements of CATWOE (Smyth and Checkland,1976). During information system design it is neces-sary to conceptualise how to support action in some de-tail, particularly when considering what functionalitywill be required from any technological provision. Oneof the central concerns when building a technology-supported information system is the necessity to checkfor consistency and completeness (Pressman, 1997;Sommerville and Sawyer, 1997) and so some formal-isation of the ideas for action is useful in enabling theIT support to be tested for robustness. To facilitate thedesign of an adequate technical specification it wouldtherefore be useful to develop means of creating moredetailed models of the action to be taken (or some partsof that action) (Champion and Stowell, 1999b). It mustbe accepted that any such models will not be a fullrepresentation of what will actually occur. Due to thesheer unpredictability of the future, learning about thesituation and possible action will never be complete. Tomaintain a Client-Led approach to information systemdesign, it would be desirable though for any intellectualdevices employed to be openly accessible to all thoseinvolved in the design process and not unduly technicalin execution (Savage and Mingers, 1996).

The idea that conversations in a social setting can beregarded as enabling co-operative action has resultedin heightened interest in using Conversation Mod-elling in information system design and in computer-supported co-operative work (Agerfalk, Goldkuhl,and Cronholm, 1999; Dietz et al., 1998; Flores andLudlow, 1981; Reijswoud, van Mulder, and Dietz,1999; Winograd and Flores, 1987). Some researchershave also developed methods for mapping con-versations in organizational settings (Goldkuhl andRoslinger, 1999; Harris and Taylor, 1998; Schoop,1998). The focus in such methods is on providingaccurate descriptions of the conversations that oc-cur within a situation, with the intention of enabling


difficulties to be analysed and new processes to bedesigned. Conversation Modelling has been criticisedfor being difficult to undertake, overly detailed andas offering a very rigid view of a situation (Graham,1998; Hirschheim, Klein, and Lyytinen, 1995). InChampion and Stowell (1999a, 1999b) we had ar-gued that it may be possible to use some of the con-ceptual activity models produced during an inquiryguided by SSM to inform the construction of mod-els of possible ‘Conversations for Action’ that mighttake place if the desired action was undertaken. In thisinstance the explicit and detailed nature of a Conversa-tion Model seemed to be useful in order to providea detailed view of how the action might operate inpractice.

The purpose in creating such models was twofold.First, the implications of implementing the intendedaction in the real world situation could be consideredin more detail, enabling those responsible for creatingthe technical specification to consider how to providethe technical functionality required. In particular, themodels would help to ‘contextualise’ the action withinthe real world situation of focus. Second, a Conver-sation Model offers an activity-oriented view of thesituation, and it was argued that this would provide adegree of continuity between the Conversation Mod-els and the conceptual activity models employed in theinitial phase of debate (Champion and Stowell, 2000).Any models created during this phase of debate oughtto also be useful in moving toward the constructionof a technical specification. SOMA (Graham, 1998) isan approach to designing the logical model for tech-nology that uses a Conversation Model to describe theoperation of the IT interacting with the ‘user’. It wasargued that it may be possible to use such an approachto designing technical specifications as one means ofconstructing the technical definition required (Stowelland Champion, 2000). By describing the ideas in thisfashion, the reader may underestimate the iterative na-ture of inquiry we advocate. The learning continues in acyclic manner, with the shared appreciation continuallybeing enriched through the debate and exploration thatoccurs. At no stage is the learning considered ‘com-plete’, though at some point it will be necessary toassume there is sufficient knowledge to create an infor-mation system. These ideas for structuring debate wereapplied in an Action Research field study to enable theframework of ideas to be critically evaluated throughpractical use.

Learning from an Action ResearchField Study

SSM was used as a guide for the initial phase of inquiry,to support those involved in deciding what purposefulaction might bring improvement (Champion, 2000).Identifying the problem theme and developing ideas forpurposeful action emerged through discussion and de-bate supported by rich pictures, root definitions and theassociated conceptual activity models. Fig. 1 is one ofthe conceptual activity models, or holons, created thatexpressed a view of some potential purposeful action,that those involved in the situation agreed might bringsome improvement. The reader is referred to Champion(2001) for a full account of this phase of inquiry.

The navigational devices were then employed to un-dertake a ‘contextualisation’ of the ideas for action. Asa first step in contextualising the ideas for purposefulaction in sufficient detail to consider the adaptations tothe information system this change required, the Con-ditions of Satisfaction were drawn directly onto someof the conceptual activity models that had been founduseful in the first phase of debate. Thinking about thecommitments that would need to be entered into if theintended action was undertaken was found to be use-ful in making explicit some tasks and activities thathad not been expressed in any of the conceptual mod-els. This addresses a concern expressed by Mingers(1995), Savage and Mingers (1996), Ledington andLedington (1999) and also by Mathiassen and Nielsen(2000) that the ideas expressed by holons created dur-ing SSM guided inquiry do not express all the activitiesrequired to implement the purposeful action. Fig. 2 isthe contextualised holon from Fig. 1.

From this point it is necessary for those involvedin the information system design process to move toconceptualising how these ideas for purposeful actionmight unfold in the situation of concern, before think-ing about the technology-based support for the action(or the serving system, Winter, Brown, and Checkland,1995). To support this phase of debate and learning,the contextualised ideas were expressed by using thedevice of a model of possible Conversations for Actionthat might occur if the purposeful action were to beundertaken in the real world situation. This model isprovided in Fig. 3.

Again, the reader is referred to Champion (2001) fora full explanation of this phase of debate. This modelprovides some ideas on how the expressed ideas for


Fig. 1. One of the holons created during the action research field study, expressing some ideas for action that might bring improvement to thesituation of concern.

Fig. 2. The contextualised sub-system 2, from the holon in Fig. 1.

purposeful action might unfold in the situation of con-cern. An absolute and unambiguous description of theaction that will occur is not possible. Essentially, thesenavigational models, created through discussion withthose involved in the situation, express the commit-ments made by actors and ways that the intended pur-poseful action might unfold in the real world, as per-

ceived by those within that situation. Vickers (1981,p. 24) suggested that “systemic thinking” can pro-vide a means of “building complementary pictures ofinexhaustible reality”. Holons created during inquiryguided by SSM are examples of such “complemen-tary pictures” in that holons are constructed to expressideas that may be relevant to the situation of focus;


Fig. 3. Model of possible conversations for action that might occur if the purposeful action expressed from activity 2 in Fig. 2, were implemented.

these models are not descriptions of real world activ-ity. To navigate the gap between ideas for purposefulaction and a design for a serving information system ina logically sound manner, those involved in the designprocess must retain the idea that the models createdduring the navigational phase are also “complemen-tary pictures” (Vickers, 1981). The value in creatingsuch models is that they express possibilities that maybe useful to those involved in the problem situation andthe limitation in such models is the same, that they canonly express possibilities, not certainties. There may bemany possible ways of implementing the action and sosome accommodation must be reached amongst thoseinvolved. Once some ideas on how the action mightwork in practice have been considered, it is then possi-ble to create a design for a supporting technology-basedinformation system, if so desired. There are no simple‘correct answers’ to be found. Those involved in thesituation must learn their way, or navigate their way,through the space between some ideas for purpose-ful action and any required information support. Thereis likely to be much iteration, with perhaps many cy-cles of learning being needed before some accommo-dation is reached. As the potential opportunities fortechnological support increase, this phase of debate in-creases in importance, as it is essential that clients and

developers work at creating a shared appreciation be-fore irreversible design decisions are made.

Using the arguments of Checkland and Scholes(1990) and Winter, Brown, and Checkland (1995), ithas been argued that the fundamental shift that oc-curs during information system design is the move-ment from some ideas for purposeful action, to think-ing about how to support that action. Moving fromconceptualising purposeful action, to conceptualisingsupport for action, will require those involved in theinquiry to think clearly and be certain which designproblem they are addressing at any particular moment.SSM can be employed as a guide to support an ex-ploration of the problem situation and to create ideasfor purposeful action. This phase of the inquiry is thenaddressing the need to think about what problems areperceived by those involved and what purposeful actionmight bring improvement to the situation of concern.In other words, those involved are supported in creat-ing ideas for a system to be served. The construction ofa logical specification is addressing a different designproblem, that is, the creation of a serving system. Theintellectual devices of Conditions of Satisfaction andConversations for Action, support those concerned inconsidering any issues associated with operationalis-ing the ideas for purposeful action, so as to enable the


movement from potentially relevant purposeful actionto designing a serving system.

The value in navigating from ideas for purposefulaction to ideas for support, is that the difference be-tween the two is highlighted, and so those involvedare supported in thinking clearly about, and comingto a shared appreciation concerning, the problem sit-uation being considered at any point. In applying theresearch ideas, it was important to investigate if thenavigational devices of Conditions of Satisfaction andConversations for Action would be sufficiently detailedexpressions of the possible real world action to informthe construction of a logical specification for a servingtechnology-based information system.

Using SOMA to Constructa Logical Specification

A developer using SOMA as a guide to constructingthe logical specification for a technology-based infor-mation system first attempts to describe the real worldbusiness process using the device of an Agent ObjectModel. Graham (1998) distinguishes between “Busi-ness Objects” found in the “external context” (or busi-ness environment) and other “internal agents” who ac-tually use the computer system being developed, theseAgents are referred to as “Agent Objects”. For exam-ple, a customer placing an order would be regarded asan external Business Object in a SOMA specificationand the salesperson who takes the order and uses sometechnology to support this activity, would be an inter-nal Agent Object. The emphasis when creating mod-els using the ideas of Graham (1998) in SOMA, isto describe how the users will interact with the tech-nology being developed. Graham argues that adoptingthis approach enables a developer to identify any rulesassociated with the activities under scrutiny. For ex-ample, when an order is placed with a salesperson asdescribed above, Graham (1998) suggests a developerconstructing a specification for a supporting informa-tion system would need to query who was responsiblefor setting the credit limit of the customer placing theorder, the salesperson, or a more senior manager. Inthe approach suggested in here, such issues would beaddressed when those involved in the inquiry considerthe Conditions of Satisfaction associated with the ac-tion they wish to undertake. Providing support for suchissues to be considered would seem a more reliableguide than assuming the design team would remem-

ber, or indeed know, to ask. Debating the Conditionsof Satisfaction facilitates a consideration of the issuesinvolved in the operationalisation, or implementation,of the ideas for purposeful action. Graham (1998) sug-gests using “design acumen” to cross these hurdles,but few clients in a business environment will be prac-titioners of some thirty years, as is Graham. The use ofintellectual devices to support all the clients remaininginvolved in the inquiry process, regardless of their tech-nical ability, also helps to promote the aims of ClientLed Design (Stowell and West, 1994) as stated in theUMISD project proposal.

For the purposes of the UMISD research, the mod-els expressing possible Conversations for Action con-structed during the field study were used as an ex-pression of how the intended real world action mightunfold in practice. These Conversations for Actionmodels were then used in the first instance, to in-form the construction of a logical model of a potentialserving technology-based information system usingSOMATiK, the case tool built to support the applica-tion of the SOMA approach in a business environment.

To construct the Agent Object Model, it was firstnecessary to identify the “Business Objects” (Agentswho were considered to be in the external context, orthe business environment) and the Agents who wereconsidered to be in the internal context (that is, us-ing the computer system). The navigational devices ofConversations for Action with any agreed underpin-ning Conditions of Satisfaction had been used to fa-cilitate the participants in considering how the actionmight unfold. In the example provided below, a cus-tomer experiencing difficulties maintaining repaymentis regarded as existing in the business environment andis therefore an external Business Object and the Col-lections Officer who will use the computer system, isregarded as an internal Agent Object. As described ear-lier in this paper, Graham (1998) regards the occurrenceof Conversations for Action as being equivalent to thepassing of messages between interactants. To constructan Agent Object Model using SOMA, the first task is toidentify the messages (in Graham’s terminology) thatan Agent will send and receive. For the work on theUMISD project, the Conversations for Action that theCollections Officer participated in were each regardedas a message for the purpose of creating the SOMAspecification, as can be seen in Fig. 4.

The phrase ‘change address’ is used, partly due tothe need to state that there would need to be some soft-ware facilitating the Collections Officer changing the


Fig. 4. The messages identified in the initial specification using SOMATiK.

address details if necessary and partly due to the limiton space in the SOMATiK case tool. The definition ofthis message in the Message Table used the same phras-ing as that in the guidelines provided for the CollectionsOfficers in their training manual and so ‘check addressis correct’ became ‘check if the customer has moved’.This is shown in Fig. 5.

Also, to create the SOMA specification a so-called“Trigger Event” was required. The accounts managedby Credit Card DMO all belonged to customers whowere behind with repayment of Credit Card debt. Itwas possible that a Collections Officer might contactthe customer, if that Collections Officer was workingthrough the telephone lists. It was also possible that thecustomer might contact the bank to inform them of achange of address, or change of employment details,or even to ask advice if they were already aware thatthe next due payment would be missed, or would notbe of the required amount. In any of these cases, as allthe customers dealt with in this section were in debt,

in essence, any of these contact situations could be re-garded as notifying the bank of some type of default ona required payment. For this reason, the term ‘defaultpayment call’ was considered an apt description of ei-ther the customer informing the bank of the situation,or the computer system flagging the account of thatcustomer as being in debt and putting the customeronto one of the telephone lists. By choosing to re-gard the Conversations for Action as SOMA messages,and checking through the Conditions of Satisfactionan Agent Object Model was gradually constructed asshown in Fig. 6.

By constructing the above Agent Object Model thefocus of the inquiry has shifted. The focus has movedfrom an emphasis on ways the action might unfold ex-pressed by the Conversations for Action models to afocus on how the Collections Officer might interactwith the technological support if undertaking the ex-pressed action in the real world situation. The AgentObject Model is an expression of the basic functionality


Fig. 5. The table from SOMATiK describing the details of the message ‘Change Address’.

a potential serving technology-based informationsystem would require. The move from conceptualis-ing ‘Conversations for Action’ to conceptualising theseconversations as messages between interactants is asomewhat easier move to make than the move fromaction to data, as occurs during Client Led Design(Stowell and West, 1994). The crucial point to noteis that the Conversation for Action models and AgentObject Models are both used as epistemological de-vices throughout. Once those undertaking the inquiryhave created a route from the focus on action to a focuson how to support that action, methods of constructinga technical specification for the supporting informationsystem can appropriately be employed.

Future Development

There is a growing awareness amongst computer sci-entists (certainly amongst those involved in the SEBPC

(1996) programme, see: Ramage, 2001), that the fieldof computer science does not offer any guidance in ad-dressing the most difficult issues in information sys-tem design. The issues that cause concern are inti-mately related to the way in which information systemsare actually created through the interactions of peopleundertaking purposeful action within social settings.Although, most computer scientists will argue thatthey have acknowledged the importance of the so-cial, cultural and political issues involved, thereis evidence that even the most recently developedengineering approaches are still underpinned by arationalistic view of information and organisation.(See Ramage, 2001 for a useful summary of adiscussion that took place at a workshop for theSEBPC programme at ICSM, Oxford, 1999). However,some members of the software engineering com-munity are beginning to address these issues. Forexample, Edwards and Millea (2002) acknowledgethat:


Fig. 6. An Agent Object Model in SOMATiK, expressing how a collections officer undertaking the activity: Identify customers experiencingdifficulties, might interact with the technology.

Removing the black art of the software engineer ininterpreting requirements from the application do-main, or systems environment, would remove theweak link in the evolutionary feedback loop.

They suggest one means of overcoming such difficul-ties might be to provide a method for formal map-ping between the models of the business process andthose of the technological implementation. Such a ma-noeuvre is immensely difficult and Edwards and Mil-lea (2002) suggest that what is required are new, morenatural programming languages empowering those us-ing the technology “. . . to make their own changes”.This suggestion seems to provide hope for the fu-ture of information system development, although theproblem of supporting those involved in the situa-tion of focus in deciding what changes to make, stillremains.

Navigating through the Design Process

The need to move from a means of sense making inhuman social settings to constructing some softwareto operationalise a technology-based informationsystem is the fundamental challenge currently facingthe Information Systems community (Checkland andScholes, 1999). Much effort has been directed atfinding ways to cross the gap between action and thelogical specification for a supporting technology-basedinformation system, but, the previous work in this areahas concentrated on devising ways to bridge the gap.The UMISD (1998) project has provided an opportu-nity to move a little closer to the possibility of a trulyClient-Led approach to the creation of informationsystems with the notion of navigating through thespace between ideas for action and a specification fora serving information system. To maintain a sense of


coherence throughout the whole design process, themodelling methods, or navigational devices employed,all expressed an activity-based view of how the actionmight unfold in the real world situation of concern.To construct each set of models, further debate andinteraction was required and those involved createda way through towards a view that expressed theshared appreciation that emerged through the debate.The Agent Object Model created as a first expressionof a potential serving technology-based informationsystem also provided an activity-based view. Cruciallythough, an underpinning cohesion was provided byemploying the principles of inquiry underpinningSoft Systems Methodology Mode 2 (Checklandand Scholes, 1999) throughout the entire inquiryprocess. The emphasis throughout the UMISD (1998)project has been on developing practical methods ofsupporting Client-Led information system design andthe ideas expressed here have been found useful withina dynamic business setting.

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Donna Champion is currently an Information SystemsLecturer at the Business School, Loughborough Uni-versity, UK. She gained her doctorate at De Mont-fort University, Milton Keynes, investigating practi-cal means of facilitating an interpretive approach toClient-Led information systems design. Her researchinterests include navigating the gap between IS re-quirements and an IS specification, and also infinding ways of validating Action Research fieldstudies.

Frank Stowell is currently Director of the MiltonKeynes campus of De Montfort University. Hisresearch has focused on methods of information systemdevelopment and the impact of IT on organizations. Heis currently President of the United Kingdom SystemsSociety and also a member of the board of the UnitedKingdom Academy of Information Systems. He is alsoa member of the HEFQC Benchmarking Committeefor Computing in the UK.

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