The role of user involvement in the success, or otherwise, of system development within a major bank in South Africa
Date
2014-06-12
Authors
Morrison, Magda
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Abstract
User involvement is widely regarded as important in the development of systems.
User involvement and user participation in the system development process was
researched extensively since the sixties. Previous studies concentrated on various
aspects of user involvement and participation and its influence on successful system
implementation. Despite all these studies, the positive effect of user involvement and
participation on system success has not been proven consistency.
This research report examines and analyses four different system development
projects in a major bank in South Africa with the objective of determining different
levels of user involvement and the effect this involvement has on the success, or
otherwise, of the actual systems. It also establishes an understanding of those issues
regarding the involvement of users during the systems development life cycle and
gives insight into the complexity of these issues. The focus is on the role users’ play
in the system development and implementation, The important issues involving user
contributions and objectives about expectations and expectation levels of the users
and the system developers are also examined.
The results stress the impact of user involvement on the development of systems. The
research emphasises the role the users played in system development and
implementation. Questions, such as what benefits are expected from the user
involvement, what benefits will in fact be achieved and should no benefits result, the
possible reasons were for the lack of achievement, will be answered. The results also
provides evidence that even though a system is in use, it does not necessarily pruve to
be successful and that user participation plays an important role in the SDLC.