An Agile Methodology for the Disaster Recovery of Information Systems Under Catastrophic Scenarios

Abstract

We explore the use of an agile methodology for improving the recovery of complex systems under catastrophic scenarios. Our adaptation of Kanban presents a novel, agile approach to overcoming the unique challenges that organizations face during disaster recovery. An action research study approach is employed to test the implementation of Kanban during a complex scenario at a large enterprise. The findings suggest that an adaptive and flexible methodology is required for an efficient disaster recovery in confronting unintended and cascading consequences. This research offers several contributions. First, to our knowledge, this is the first study to detail an approach for disaster recovery using an agile methodology. Second, this study uses a new combination of classic, canonical, and dialogical action research approaches to conduct the first empirical test of the effectiveness of an agile approach during an actual disaster recovery event. Third, in response to this Special Issue, the aforementioned research approach discusses the relationships between information systems researchers and research clients, demonstrating how action research can lead to improved organizational situations.

Key words and phrases:

• action research
• agile project management
• catastrophic scenario planning
• IS disaster recovery
• Kanban

Supplemental File

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website at 10.1080/07421222.2017.1372996

Notes

1. We acknowledge that the term “information systems” broadly pertains to people, processes, and technology that are used to handle and interpret information. However, the term is also used in a restrictive sense to refer only to the computer networks, systems, and software used in an organization. We adopt the latter approach in this study.

2 We are aware that there are many types of disasters such as natural disasters, man-made disasters, and onset disasters. In this study, we focus on disasters at the organizational level.

3. The lead researcher was contacted by a company wanting to know more about agile methodologies and how agile might be leveraged and implemented to improve the recovery time and efficiency of DR. Although other capabilities were considered, the potential relationship between DR needs and agile methodologies were of interest to the company and needed to be resolved.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Corey Baham

Corey Baham ([email protected]; corresponding author) is an assistant professor of management science and information systems (IS) at Oklahoma State University. His research focuses on agility in IS development, systems recovery, and firm dexterity. His work has been published in Communications of the AIS and major IS conference proceedings.

Rudy Hirschheim

Rudy Hirschheim ([email protected]) is the Ourso Family Distinguished Professor of Information Systems at Louisiana State University. He was previously on the faculties of the University of Houston, Templeton College–Oxford, and the London School of Economics. He was given the LEO Award for Lifetime Achievement by the Association for Information Systems. He is senior editor for the journal Information and Organization and on the editorial boards of Information Systems Journal, Journal of Management Information Systems, Journal of Strategic Information Systems, and others.

Andres A. Calderon

Andres A. Calderon ([email protected]) has 25 years of diversified technology experience at both large and small enterprises; technical personnel management capability at different levels of the organizational structure; project management, and enterprise system administration experience. He also has vast experience in aligning technology to corporate vision and extensive background in business development.

Victoria Kisekka

Victoria Kisekka ([email protected]) is an assistant professor at the State University of New York at Albany. Her research interests include information assurance, organizational resilience, health-care information technologies, and disaster recovery and response. Her work has been published in Computers in Human Behavior and various information systems conference proceedings.