Designing a business reengineering information system with performance support concepts: a description of the system analysis process

Abstract

This naturalistic case study investigated a business reengineering project at a large company located in the Northeast. Because the Human Resources (HR) department had downsized, decision makers within HR began investigating the feasibility of customizing a purchased HR Information System. To ensure that the new HR information system was usable by all employees, project leaders wanted to include performance support concepts into the customization of the system. The main focus of my research was investigating the major issues associated with incorporating performance support principles into a system development life-cycle model.

The analysis of these data included a qualitative approach where I described the critical events relating to performance support system development that occurred on the project. In addition, I used the diffusion of innovation theory to analyze and interpret the data. Results indicated that there were major inconsistencies with the term "performance support" and the need for implementing performance support solutions on the project. Some Information Technology team members realized the importance of incorporating performance support into the system development life-cycle. However, because of the tight time frame for customizing the software with performance support concepts, several members of the Information Technology team believed that incorporating performance support for the initial release was unreasonable. For the initial release of the new HR information system the role of the Performance Support team shifted from seeking performance support solutions towards pursuing traditional training solutions for teaching employees how to use the HR information system.