Disappointing System Applications

A common difficulty in any service industry is a mutually demeaning attitude between the service provider and user. The more continual the service, the greater the attitude tends to become. In application system development, the user attitude is an expectation that developers should automatically understand the difficulties of the user, while the developer attitude is that the users' jobs are only difficult because of the users performing them. As a result, new applications are developed with many assumptions that are never confirmed before implementation.

In the early days of application systems, there was a specific role for someone from the development team to bridge the assumption gap between the user and the developer. Over time however, the attitudes of the users and developers pushed the role of the systems analyst first into technology and then into obsolescence. Now, with the failure of ever more applications, the role is again added by the users as a business systems analyst to solidify functionality and user interfaces before technology becomes involved.

MCS can establish a client application development organization and process that promotes cooperation between developers and users and the implementation of effective systems.

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