Information systems development: a perspective on the challenge of evolutionary complexity

Abstract

This conceptual paper proposes that the methodical approach to information system development leads us to design systems that are unable to deal with the challenge of evolutionary complexity. This is examined through the use of a systemic framework that describes evolutionary complexity in terms of interaction between the concepts of distinction/connection and variation/selection. In applying these concepts to the social world we are led to conclude (a) that social regularities are emergent and not a priori given and (b) that these emergent regularities are constantly shifting and evolving. This has strong implications for the methodical approach to development, which we argue assumes social structures, mechanisms and processes as ‘invariant regularities’ that only have to be revealed to be understood. This difference leads methodical development to produce static systems that have to work in a dynamic world. The paper concludes by outlining a proposition in response to the challenge of evolutionary complexity, one where design is considered as an inherently ongoing process.