FLEXIBILITY OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENTPROJECTS: A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
Gwanhoo Lee, Weidong Xia · 2002
As both the business and technological environments change rapidly, information systems development (ISD) projects cannot succeed without being flexible and responsive to changes. However, there is little theoretical understanding of ISD project flexibility and its measurement. This research defines and conceptualizes the flexibility construct and develops a conceptual framework for measuring ISD project flexibility. The framework is based on two dimensions: measures of flexibility and types of ISD project flexibility. Measures of flexibility include time, cost, difficulty, amount and range. ISD project flexibility is classified into two types: flexibility to respond to end-user requirement changes and flexibility to respond to information technology (IT) changes. The significance and implications of the proposed framework for research are discussed.