Slow Change of Information System Development Practice

Recent advances in information system (IS) development such as object oriented technology, CASE tools, and increasing emphasis on software quality should bring better products and faster delivery to the customer. Yet, despite the high expectation of these new technologies, it is not clear whether there is any real change at the working level. This paper presents a multi-year study on the change of development practice, quality practice, and project performance of the software industry. Data on various dimensions of IS development was collected in three consecutive years. The results indicated that the changes were slow over the period. In many areas, no significant change was detected, except there was a slightly increasing use of CASE tools. It seems that the lack of resources, short term outlook, and unknown value of process improvement may be the contributing factors to the slow change.