Method Engineering in Case: Theoretical Principles and Empirical Evidence of an Incremental Approach

Despite a plethora of information system development (ISD) methods available, organisations are seldom satisfied with methods taken as given. Surveys as well as case studies on method development and CASE tool use reveal that organisations tend to develop their own "variants" of methods, or interpret methods available according to their situation specific needs (cf. Aaen et al. 1992, Russo & Wynekoop 1995). For example, a survey on the use of ISD methods by Russo & Wynekoop (1995) shows that even 2/3 of the companies have developed their methods in-house. There is, however, surprisingly little empirical knowledge available on local method development and on method use. In fact, most of the work reported has concentrated on developing new "standard" or universal methods, or on the development of frameworks for method analysis, comparison, and selection (cf. Olle et al. 1988). We do not know why and how local method development is actually done, how frequently it is done, and maybe most importantly how well in-house methods work (Wynekoop & Russo 1993). Similarly, organizations lack of principles and guidelines to carry out inhouse method development.