Effects-Driven IT Development

Research program co-funded by CSC Scandihealth A/S, the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, Region Zealand and Region South Denmark.

Focus: to investigate how the effects of the use of a system could play a prominent role in the contractual definition of IT design projects and how contract fulfilment could be determined on the basis of proven utility value and measured effects. The idea of effects-driven IT development is generally applicable to all large-scale IT design projects but is in this project primarily investigated in the context of healthcare systems.

Funding: 8.3 million kr. from Bispebjerg Hospital, Region Zealand, Region South Denmark, Vækstforum Zealand, Vækstforum Norway, Imatis A/S, CSC Scandihealt A/S, KMD A/S and the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Higher Education.

Researchers: 2 senior researchers from RUC and KU and in total 9 Ph.D. students.

Partners: KMD A/S, CSC Scandihealth A/S, Imatis A/S, Hospitals and IT units within the Zealand, South Denmark, North Denmark, and the Capital Regions of Denmark, health care centres and municipalities in Denmark.

Description

Effects-driven IT development attempts to provide a sustained focus on the effects to be achieved by users through their adoption and use of a system. Simply put, the overall idea is to capture the purpose of a system in terms of effects that are both measurable and meaningful to the customer, and to systematically evaluate whether these effects are attained during real use of the system. A sustained focus on effects accentuates that the functionality of a system is merely a means to an end, but it also entails that effects must not only be specified but also evaluated in the course of the development process. That is, effects-driven IT development blurs the distinction between design and organizational implementation – between design and use.

The idea of effects-driven IT development is generally applicable to all large-scale IT projects but will in this project be investigated in the context of healthcare information infrastructures such as Electronic Patient Record (EPR) systems.

The long-term aim of the project is to investigate how the effects of the use of a system could play a prominent role in the contractual definition of IT projects and how contract fulfilment could be determined on the basis of proven utility value and measured effects.

we have worked with 5 research questions, using action research projects with industrial partners:

1. How can desired effects be specified and specified effects measured?

2. How can pilot implementations create the conditions for measuring the effects of using a system?

3. How can effects that are specific to the users’ work processes be related to overarching strategic and political effects?

4. How can the partnership that is necessary for effects-driven IT development be established between customer and vendor?

5. How can an effects-driven approach be incorporated in the contractual regulation of IT projects, and what are the consequences of doing it?