The Use of Systems Development Methodologies, Tools, and Techniques in Western Australia

Abstract

This research has arisen out of the continuing trends in the Information Systems (IS) and Information Technology (IT) industry. Interviews were conducted with a number of Information Systems (IS) and Information Technology (IT) managers in the public and private sector organisations in Perth, Western Australia (WA). The aim of this research is to investigate the use of various methodologies, techniques, and tools in systems development projects and also to initiate further work in this area. One of the reasons for this investigation is to see whether the traditional systems development life cycle is still in use and whether development techniques (such as Data Flow Diagrams and Entity Relationship Diagrams) introduced in the early 80s are still in use by IS/IT practitioners. Also, from this investigation, academia would be able to update their teaching programme from an informed perspective.

Fourteen IS/IT managers were interviewed within a period of two months in 1996. The interviews revealed the use of development techniques such as Joint Application Development (JAD), Rapid Application Development (RAD), Prototyping, Data and Process Modelling, Object Orientation (OO), and tools such as Computer-Aided Software Engineering (CASE), and various in-house and commercial methodologies such as Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC), Information Engineering Methodology (IE), 00 Meth odology, and Structured Systems Analysis Design Methodology (SSADM) to support the ongoing process of systems development.

This paper reveals the outcome of the interviews.