Evolutionary Method Engineering - Towards a Method for the Analysis and Conception of Management Information Systems

Becker J, Janiesch C, Pfeiffer D, Seidel S

Abstract
The aim of management information systems is to satisfy the information need managers have to successfully accomplish their tasks. The quality of management decisions is highly dependent on the information they are based on. A structured conception of these systems is a crucial task that has to precede their implementation and monitoring. Several conceptual modeling methods (CMM) for business intelligence applications have been developed in order to support the specification of data warehouse structures and management information systems. However, none of them was found to be appropriate to bridge the communication gap in the process of requirements analysis. Thus, in an ongoing research effort, a CMM has been designed to adequately support the system conception. Several case studies were conducted and in an iterative process the findings were incorporated to improve the initial CMM. The result of this process is a CMM quite different to the original one. The aim of this paper is to elaborate on the evolutionary development of a CMM and to show how it has successfully been applied in multiple case studies.

Keywords
Management Information Systems; Method Engineering; Evolutionary Design; Conceptual Modeling; Design Science Research; Case Study