Role-play in inquiring systems and information systems development

Churchman's framework for inquiring systems has been used by authors interested in taking more than just a positivistic approach to information systems development. This framework is used by Churchman to explore the nature of the design process and the philosophical implications arising. Inquiring systems are supported by a set of conditions and statements which define three generic roles played in the design and implementation of inquiring systems. These roles are compared with the generic roles of information systems development identified by Hirschheim and Klein. Churchman develops his ideas using the cause-effect model of physical science which supports the software engineering approach to information systems development. However, this does not support interpretative approaches to information systems development, such as Checkland's Soft Systems Methodology. Paradoxically, Checkland claims philosophical support from Singerian Inquiring Systems for his methodology. The problems found are shown to relate, in part, to the measure of performance and how it is implemented. However, the main problem is the spectrum of environments that information systems development takes place in, not all of which follow the cause-effect paradigm. Copyright (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.