IDENTIFYING AND INCORPORATING CHANGE IN INFORMATION-SYSTEMS

The difficulty of identifying future requirements and the inflexibilit y of information systems make what is normally called the maintenance process difficult and costly, and may lead to information systems fail ure or obsolescence. This paper addresses the problem in a number of w ays. It discusses three techniques which might be used to help identif y future requirements. Two of these techniques are drawn from other di sciplines; the third is not used widely in the information systems dom ain. All the techniques have broader applicability than maintenance al one, in that they are concerned with reducing uncertainty. The paper o utlines some tenets ff good applications software design, drawn from a number of sources, which will facilitate change by making the softwar e design more flexible. Finally, these tenets are incorporated into in formation systems design through a proposed modification of the inform ation systems life cycle framework. This framework-part of a ''code of good practice'' for information systems developers-could be incorpora ted into information systems development methodologies.