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Systems-Thinking Heuristics for the Reconciliation of Methodologies for Design and Analysis for Information Systems Engineering

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Research Challenges in Information Science (RCIS 2020)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing ((LNBIP,volume 385))

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Abstract

Many competing, complementary, generic, or specific methodologies for design and analysis co-exist in the field of Information System Engineering. The idea of reconciling these methodologies and their underlying theories has crossed the minds of researchers many times. In this paper, we inquire into the nature of such reconciliation using the interpretivist research paradigm. This paradigm acknowledges the existence of diverse points of view as ways of seeing and experiencing the world through different contexts. We examine why it might be impossible to reconcile these methodologies that each represents a point of view. Instead of searching for the one (overarching, universal, global, ultimate) methodology that reconciles all others, we explain why we should think about reconciliation as an ongoing practice. We propose to the community a set of heuristics for this practice. The heuristics are a result of our experience in reconciling a number of methods that we created as part of our research during the past 20 years. We illustrate the use of the heuristics with an example of use cases and user stories. We believe these heuristics to be of interest to the Information Systems Engineering community.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    We could interpret pomodoro as pomo d’oro, meaning a golden apple. Thus, the tomato becomes a golden apple, if we only look at the representation (ontology) of methods. We anecdotally call this heuristic the “Golden Tomato” heuristic.

  2. 2.

    “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” from Animal Farm: A Fairy Story, 1945 by George Orwell.

  3. 3.

    “Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.” from Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven, 1899 by William Butler Yeats.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. LAMS, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Blagovesta Kostova, Gil Regev & Alain Wegmann

  2. Université Paris 1, Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris, France

    Irina Rychkova

  3. Triune Continuum Enterprise, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Andrey Naumenko

Authors
  1. Blagovesta Kostova
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  2. Irina Rychkova
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  3. Andrey Naumenko
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  4. Gil Regev
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  5. Alain Wegmann
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Blagovesta Kostova .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Fabiano Dalpiaz

  2. Stockholm University, Kista, Sweden

    Jelena Zdravkovic

  3. The Institute of Digital Innovation and Research, Dublin, Ireland

    Pericles Loucopoulos

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Kostova, B., Rychkova, I., Naumenko, A., Regev, G., Wegmann, A. (2020). Systems-Thinking Heuristics for the Reconciliation of Methodologies for Design and Analysis for Information Systems Engineering. In: Dalpiaz, F., Zdravkovic, J., Loucopoulos, P. (eds) Research Challenges in Information Science. RCIS 2020. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 385. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50316-1_7

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