Introduction
Information systems (IS) development plays a central role in every organisation. It is a well-known fact that many such systems fail, costing organisations dearly. In fact in the USA more than 50% of such systems are either partial or total failures. Clearly a company takes on a significant risk when embarking on the development of an IS.
Information systems role in the organisation
Information systems main role in organisations is a support function; systems don’t exist for their own sake. The nature of an IS is that it is a function supporting people taking purposeful action. A good ISD process needs to examine the ways in which people in the organisation perceive their world. The key point is that meanings and purposes is essential in order to arrive at the right system which will support the data processing. (Checkland & Holwell, 1998:110-113)
Figure: SCRUM Agile Process for Globally Distributed Teams
The history of systems development
Systems development was seen in the earlier years as a predominantly practical, technical process that led to a problem-solving philosophy accepted by computer professionals as a purely technical process aimed at solving problems which are defined in mostly technical terms. This mechanistic bias in the systems development process can be the leading factor in information systems failure. (Maguire, 2000:232-236)
Agile Development
The philosophy of agile development
The philosophy of agile is defined in a Manifesto. In this Manifesto the values are outlined that should be in agile development. These values state that individuals and their interactions must be more important than processes and tools.
How the SDLC and Agile methods compare
In outline the distinction between the SDLC and Agile methods can be formulated as follows:
The SDLC
The SDLC has a technical bias.
It
