Planning Activities: Lessons for Information Systems Development

ISD involves a variety of planning tasks, probably more so than other professions. The planning activity permutates throughout all stages of development, implementation, management and use. Given the key role that planning plays in ISD and use, this chapter examines whether the people involved in the development and use of IS are equipped to cope with the required planning tasks. To accomplish this, a survey is used to chart the planning profiles from a sample of the general population. The survey, conducted through the Mass-Observation Archive (MOA) at the University of Sussex, was not fully representative of the general population and contains age and gender biases. However, it does represent people from a wide selection of socio economic backgrounds and is likely to provide a good window into ‘every day contemporary life’. The survey responses give an indication of what people usually plan for, how people plan and how long in the future people plan for. Further examination enables two different future-views, those of ‘planners’ and ‘non-planners’, to be generated. These future-views are considered with the planning needs for ISD management and use. People involved in planning tasks are likely to make use of existing planning skills gained in ‘every day life’. As such managers need to be aware of planning profiles when allocation planning tasks and identifying training needs. Potential synergies and problems for effective ISD planning activities are discussed.