ECIS DEVELOPMENT: REFINING E-PROCESS SELECTION

E-Commerce is considered an excellent way for companies to reach new customers. E-Commerce Information Systems (eCIS) need to be developed properly in order to achieve their full potential. A sensible choice of a development process (e-Process) for the eCIS is expected to impact the e-CIS quality. A model of how to make such a sensible choice is proposed in this paper. This model aims at identifying the information needed for a sensible choice and using it in a justifiable way. The most obvious models for sensibly choosing the e-Process best suited are listed and discussed. The model provided here is based on a pre-selection of e-Processes and a grouping of the necessary information into groups such as applications, conception, documentation, methodology, organization, modeling systems and tool support. Each group consists of a number of dimensions and a score is obtained for each pre-selected e-Process. A heuristic is deriving, from these scores, a proposal of the e-Process to use. The architecture of a prototype e-Process selection tool is outlined and the part of the heuristic that has been constructed and implemented is discussed. The heuristic is more a tool for making the key factors obvious and defining their subjective importance rather than a methodology that should be followed blindly.