Developing CRMSys at SoftTel: Traditional or agile?

ABSTRACT

The increasing popularity of agile software development has significantly changed the way organizations plan, design, and implement software applications. However, considering the complexity involved with software development, the decision to choose an agile approach over the traditional waterfall approach is not straightforward. Organizations should carefully evaluate a variety of factors when choosing a development approach. In this teaching case study, the authors provide a discussion case to facilitate the students’ learning of using agile vs. traditional approaches in software development. This case study is developed based on experiences of multiple real-world software development projects and the literature on software development. It is designed to reflect the complexities students are likely to encounter in actual software development projects. The case can be used in undergraduate or graduate level management information systems courses that cover agile software development approaches. Students can gain an understanding of factors to consider when choosing a development approach, which tailors to the organization, the project environment, and the project team.

Notes

¹ Readings with * indicate additional readings that could be used for graduate courses.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Hyung Koo Lee

Hyung Koo Lee is an assistant professor in the Department of Information Technologies at HEC Montréal. He holds an M.S. degree in Management Information Systems from the University of Arizona, and a Ph.D. degree in Computer Information Systems from Georgia State University. His research focuses on IT project management issues including IT project escalation, error reporting within IT projects, and IT project personnel management. His research has appeared in academic journals and conferences such as the Journal of Management Information Systems, Information Systems Journal, Information and Management, the International Conference on Information Systems, the Academy of Management Proceedings, and other conferences.

Tianjie Deng

Tianjie Deng is an assistant professor of the Department of Business Information and Analytics at the Daniels College of Business, University of Denver. She received her Ph.D. in Computer Information Systems from the J. Mack Robinson College of Business, Georgia State University. Her research interests include online communities, electronic word-of-mouth, and open source software development. Her work has published in academic journals and conference proceedings including Health Systems, Online Information Review, ACM Transactions on Management Information Systems, Information and Management, Americas Conference on Information Systems, and Hawaii International Conference on System Science.

Sumantra Sarkar

Sumantra Sarkar is currently an associate professor in Management Information Systems at the School of Management, State University of New York, Binghamton. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Information Systems from the J. Mack Robinson College of Business, Georgia State University. He has an MS in Computer Information Systems (Health Informatics), an MBA in Operations Research, and holds PMP and CISA certifications. His research interests include health information technology, organizational processes, agile development, IT governance and IT security. His work has appeared in premier IS journals and conferences like Information Systems Research (ISR), Journal of Management Information Systems (JMIS), European Journal of Information Systems (EJIS), Information Systems Journal (ISJ), Communications of the Association for Information Systems (CAIS), Journal of Business Research (JBR), IEEE IT Professional, Academy of Management Best Papers Proceedings, among others. He has over two decades of experience in the industry holding senior management positions in IT organizations of large multinational corporations like GEC, Novell, Hutchison Whampoa, and ABN AMRO Bank. Before he moved to research and academia permanently, he headed the IT delivery group for the Indian operations of Royal Bank of Scotland as Vice President, Head of Infrastructure and Shared Delivery.