WIDENING OUR VIEWS OF INFORMATION-SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT

The first main message of this paper is that our purpose of developing information systems in business is to achieve sustainable effects in the firm. This implies widening our focus from information systems to include business processes and persons. It also involves widening our focus from methodology to development processes. The second main message is that we should widen our focus from business process re-engineering to business process reshaping. The idea is to focus on the purpose (reshaped business processes) rather than on a specific approach (such as business process re-engineering). This enables us to focus on the purpose of achieving sustainable effects in the business firm. We can then apply different approaches in different situations, using a larger variety of action. In the last part of the paper, some opportunities and challenges related to widening your focus in the above respects are discussed. The paper ends with the third main message that achieving sustainable effects from information systems development and widening the focus to business process reshaping are two different applications of the same idea: Consider the larger context of the processes you are involved in.