Rapid and Participatory is Analysis and Design: A Means to Defy the ‘Anatomy of Confusion’?

Conclusions In reflection a number of points arise: First and most importantly — to avoid the confusion of the organisation — it is essential for the analysis and design process to be owned and employed by the organisation in question. Each analysis and design methodology which builds up levels of complexity and unnecessary technocracy in the development of information systems effectively robs the organisation in question of the capacity to develop its own information system and share in the learning which this analysis produces. Secondly, the developing countries and transitional economies have been the recipients of many projects over the years which constitute impositions of remote technocrats over local needs. The recent experience of information systems design indicates that this phenomenon is developing into the relatively new area of IS. The primary intention of the RISD/Multiview approach is to provide an approach which is useable by the wide range of new practitioners now emerging in the developing countries and transitional economies. Thirdly and finally, one of the hall-marks of analysis and design to date has been the stunning inability of authors to explicitly describe failure and problems. For confusion to be avoided and complexity to be understood and simplified it is essential that lessons are learned and practitioners share their experiences of both the science and art of the analysis and design process.