Integrating the rational unified process and participatory design for development of socio- technical systems: A user participative approach Sofie Pilemalm, Per-Ola Lindell, Niklas Hallberg and Henrik Eriksson Linköping University Post Print N.B.: When citing this work, cite the original article. Original Publication: Sofie Pilemalm, Per-Ola Lindell, Niklas Hallberg and Henrik Eriksson, Integrating the rational unified process and participatory design for development of socio-technical systems: A user participative approach, 2007, Design Studies, (28), 3, 263-288. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.destud.2007.02.009 Copyright: Elsevier http://www.elsevier.com/ Postprint available at: Linköping University Electronic Press http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-40336 ARTICLE IN PRESS JDST455_proof 6 March 2007 1/26 Integrating the Rational Unified Process 1 2 and participatory design for development 3 of socio-technical systems: a user 4 5 participative approach 6 7 Sofie Pilemalm, Per-Ola Lindell, Niklas Hallberg and Henrik Eriksson, 8 Department of Systems Development and IT Security, Division of Command 9 and Control Systems, Swedish Defence Research Agency, FOI, PO Box 1165, 10 SE-581 11 Linko¨ping, Sweden 11 12 This study presents the MOPT-Systems Development Process, aimed at 13 bridging the gap between ideality and reality. The process is based on an 14 approach to systems development involving a formalised process for PROOF 15 developing socio-technical systems. In specific, it integrates a modified 16 Rational Unified Process (RUP) framework with a socio-technical system 17 view and an extended participatory design (PD) perspective using PD 18 techniques and social research methods. It is argued that the integrated 19 approach, by combining the RUP formalisation, modeling tools and coverage 20 of the entire development process, together with the parallel development of 21 methodology, organisation, and personnel, will greatly enhance the chance of 22 solid systems, grounded in the organisation and appreciated by its users. In 23 this respect, the close cooperation with the end-users throughout the 24 development process is supposed to contribute. 25 Ó 2007 Published by Elsevier Ltd. 26 27 Keywords: Rational Unified Process, systems design, user participation, 28 collaborative design 29 30 31 32 n the last few decades, the need for taking a simultaneous view on 33 methodological, organisational, personnel, and technical aspects when 34 Ideveloping information systems, i.e., to develop socio-technical systems, 35 has become increasingly recognised (Avison and Fitzgerald, 1995). Similarly, 36 the necessityNCORRECTED of involving the end-users actively throughout the development 37 process in order to arrive at systems that are actually usable, used and appre- 38 ciatedU is today acknowledged by most system developers, at least in theory and 39 in academia. However, simultaneously to these insights, the software engineer- 40 ing approaches that still dominate industry tend less to put explicit emphasis 41 on the end-users and on the organisational and social aspects of information 42 systems. An example is the Rational Unified Process (RUP) which has, in re- Corresponding author: 43 S. Pilemalm cent years, received much attention as a defined process for development of 44 sofi[email protected] software intensive systems ensuring a high quality product (Kruchten, 45 www.elsevier.com/locate/destud 0142-694X $ - see front matter Design Studies -- (2007) --e-- doi:10.1016/j.destud.2007.02.009 1 Ó 2007 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Printed in Great Britain Please cite this article in press as: Pilemalm, S et al., Integrating the Rational Unified Process and participatory design for development of socio-technical systems: a user participative approach, Design Studies (2007), doi:10.1016/ j.destud.2007.02.009 ARTICLE IN PRESS JDST455_proof 6 March 2007 2/26 2004). On the other hand, socio-technical oriented approaches, such as Partic- 46 ipatory Design (PD), are often criticised for being imprecise and lack in defin- 47 ing a fully specified design process (Constantine and Lockwood, 2002) and to 48 put emphasis only on the early systems development phases resulting in that 49 a ready-to-use system is seldom delivered (Tollmar, 2001). In the specific 50 case of PD, the approach is almost exclusively applied to small-scale projects 51 within the academic domain rather than to the design of large, strategic infor- 52 mation systems (Oostveen and van den Besselar, 2004). In conclusion, the need 53 to combine the benefits of a socio-technical perspective and active user partic- 54 ipation with more formalised processes covering entire system life cycles seems 55 urgent, both for academia and industry. This study presents a novel approach 56 to systems development based on such a combination, for the development of 57 information systems that are technologically solid as well as organisationally 58 compatible and grounded in users’ needs. 59 PROOF 60 1 Study objectives 61 The objective of the study is to present an overall approach and a specified pro- 62 cess for developing socio-technical systems. In specific, the study contributes 63 to the field of systems development by the following: 64 65 1. Presenting an overall approach to systems development based on the in- 66 tegration of a modified, extended version of RUP with an extended ver- 67 sion of PD. 68 2. Suggesting the MOPT-Systems Development Process based on the pre- 69 sented approach. The notion of MOPT systems refers to systems that con- 70 sider method, organisation personnel and technology in parallel during the 71 development process. (Figures 1e2) 72 More concretely, the MOPT-Systems Development Process is based on a sub- 73 set of RUP principles, artefacts and notations, in combination with principles 74 of active user participation and social research methods. It is intended to be 75 applied in the development of socio-technical systems, with a particular focus 76 on systems that are large, complex and distributed. 77 78 2 Background 79 This section presents the systems view and development approaches of rele- 80 vance forNCORRECTED the study, including socio-technical systems, the Rational Unified 81 Process, and participatory design. Further, a brief description of the study 82 context is provided. 83 U 84 2.1 Socio-technical systems 85 The socio-technical system view emerged in the 1970s as an opponent to the 86 more down-right technical perspectives that, thus far, had dominated systems 87 development thinking. According to the socio-technical view, systems consist 88 of individuals, social, cultural and organisational components, in addition to 89 mere technology. For systems to work well, they must fit closely with organisa- 90 2 Design Studies Vol -- No. -- Month 2007 Please cite this article in press as: Pilemalm, S et al., Integrating the Rational Unified Process and participatory design for development of socio-technical systems: a user participative approach, Design Studies (2007), doi:10.1016/ j.destud.2007.02.009 ARTICLE IN PRESS JDST455_proof 6 March 2007 3/26 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 Figure 1 Example of relations 98 between disciples and phases 99 as described in RUP Version 100 2003.06.00. The different 101 disciples receive different 102 amount of attention depend- 103 ing on the current project 104 phase PROOF 105 106 tional and social factors, and preferably enhance the quality of work life for 107 the users. Examples of the socio-technical system view are the Effective Tech- 108 nical and Human Implementation of Computer based Systems (ETHICS) 109 methodology, the Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) (Avison and Fitzgerald, 110 1995), and PD. The MOPT-Systems Development Process adopts a socio- 111 technical system view which is most visible in that method, organisation, per- 112 sonnel and technology are seen as equally important parts of the system and 113 are developed in parallel throughout the development process. 114 115 Of course a socio-technical perspective can be adopted for developing small as 116 well as large information systems. In contemporary society an ever increasing 117 amount of existing systems is large-scale and distributed, affecting many peo- 118 ple and institutions, as well as being complex, involving many administrative, 119 organisational, legal, political and ideological issues to be considered in the 120 systems development process (Oostveen and van den Besselar, 2004). The pro- 121 posed integrative approach follows in this development, which means that the 122 process in specific targets (but is not limited to) development of socio-technical 123 information systems of reasonably comprehensive size and involving heteroge- 124 neous user groups. This is, for instance, reflected in the extended version of PD 125 and the use of social research methods. 126 NCORRECTED 127 2.2 The Rational Unified Process 128 The RationalU Unified Process (RUP) is a software engineering process aimed 129 at guiding software development organisations in their endeavours to create 130 solid software. According to RUP, a system’s lifetime is described as a finite 131 number of development cycles. Each development cycle is divided into the 132 four project phases Inception, Elaboration, Construction and Transition (0). 133 The phases, in its turn, are divided into a number of iterations, depending 134 on the project’s needs and size. RUP includes nine disciples that are iteratively 135 Integrating the Rational Unified Process and participatory design 3 Please cite this article