Boundaries between Participants in Outsourced Requirements Construction

The concept of the boundary is a powerful analytic tool for analyzing the challenges in collaboration between participants in outsourced requirements construction. Through an ethnographic study in a requirements construction project, where participants came from the client and vendor organizations, and represented varying expertises and organizational positions, we found professional boundaries between users and external software developers, and between external software experts and in-house information system (IS) experts. The authority boundary between the client’s manager and operatives was evident. Findings were discussed within the knowledge areas that are needed in the professional IS development. In order to help IS experts, participatory design (PD) practitioners and IS researchers in their attempts to develop the user-designer and client-vendor relationships, PD for outsourced IS development should be developed and further researched.

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