CAiSE 2018 Keynote

InformationSystemsEngineering
intheDigitalAge
Jan Recker
Institute for Information Systems | Chair for Information Systems and Systems Development

It is a wonderful time to be an IS
engineer.
Finally, everything is in place.

Elliot, S., and Avison, D. "Discipline of Information Systems," in: Research in Information Systems: A Handbook for Research Supervisors and their
Students, D. Avison and J. Pries-Heje (eds.), Elsevier, Burlington, Massachusetts, 2005, pp. 185-206.

Digital objects (systems,
technology, algorithms, media, etc.)
have become the
center of attention of…
… everyone.
Not just systems engineers.

CitesPerYear Authors Title Year
52.08D Benavides, P Trinidad, A Ruiz‐Cortés Automated reasoning on feature models 2005
48.44F Casati, S Ilnicki, LJ Jin, V Krishnamoorthy… Adaptive and Dynamic Service Composition in eFlow 2000
42.85N Russell, WMP van der Aalst…
Workflow resource patterns: Identification, representation and tool
support 2005
25.92
B Benatallah, F Casati, D Grigori, HRM
Nezhad… Developing adapters for web services integration 2005
25M Indulska, J Recker, M Rosemann… Business process modeling: Current issues and future challenges 2009
25N Tax, I Verenich, M La Rosa, M Dumas Predictive business process monitoring with LSTM neural networks 2017
23.36WMP Van Der Aalst, L Aldred, M Dumas… Design and implementation of the YAWL system 2004
22.94WMP van der Aalst, M Weske The P2P approach to interorganizational workflows 2001
22.55B Weber, S Rinderle, M Reichert
Change patterns and change support features in process‐aware
information systems 2007
22J Vanderdonckt
A MDA‐compliant environment for developing user interfaces of
information systems 2005
21.5M Weidlich, R Dijkman, J Mendling
The ICoP framework: Identification of correspondences between process
models 2010
21S Kelly, K Lyytinen, M Rossi
Metaedit+ a fully configurable multi‐user and multi‐tool case and came
environment 1996
20.92N Russell, W van der Aalst, A ter Hofstede Workflow exception patterns 2006
20.61B Kiepuszewski, AHM Ter Hofstede… On structured workflow modelling 2000
20.5FM Maggi, C Di Francescomarino, M Dumas… Predictive monitoring of business processes 2014
19.78N Trčka, WMP Van der Aalst, N Sidorova Data‐flow anti‐patterns: Discovering data‐flow errors in workflows 2009
19.14RPJC Bose, WMP van der Aalst, I Žliobaitė… Handling concept drift in process mining 2011
18.27J Ralyté, R Deneckère, C Rolland Towards a generic model for situational method engineering 2003
17.8S Meyer, A Ruppen, C Magerkurth
Internet of things‐aware process modeling: integrating IoT devices as
business process resources 2013
16.41J Castro, M Kolp, J Mylopoulos A requirements‐driven development methodology 2001
16.1MP Papazoglou The challenges of service evolution 2008
15.67FM Maggi, RPJC Bose, WMP van der Aalst
Efficient discovery of understandable declarative process models from
event logs 2012
15.57F Friedrich, J Mendling, F Puhlmann Process model generation from natural language text 2011
On the duality of information‐centric and activity‐centric models of

0
5
10
15
20
25
1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
Paper Count
The dawn
of the
digital
age!

Wait a second.
Most CAiSE works contain spurious references to
– Digital natives
– Online groups such as the Digital Humanitarian Network
– The ACM Digital Library!
or use the word ‚digital‘ to differentiate offline from
online, such as
– Digital signatures from … signatures.
– Electronic patient records from … patient folders.
– Digital geographic data from … maps.
– Digital newspapers (an iPad!) from … The Times.

Digital Natives
Digital Age 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0
Digital Transformation
Digital Disruption
Digital …

“I’d like to think . . . that
the whole dustup could have
the effect of prodding people
to think more carefully […]
before spouting the relevant
buzzwords.”
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/06/23/clayton_christensen_jill_lepore_agree_disruptive_innovation_has_become_a.html

1. Acknowledging the ontology of the digital.
What is different about “digital technology” IS artefacts?
2. Changing the focus of our theorizing.
How can we develop knowledge about IS artefacts involving digital
technology?
3. Embracing different methodology.
How should we research IS engineering in the digital age?
Three Ways to move forward with
IS Engineering in the Digital Age

When
everything is
digital,
Nothing really
is.

Orlikowski, W.J., and Scott, S.V. "Sociomateriality: Challenging
the Separation of Technology, Work and Organization," The
Academy of Management Annals (2:1) 2008, pp 433-474.

Routines
and Action
Material
Agency
Human
Agency

What makes technology ‘digital’?
The decoupling of digital information from
the material device that carries it
Yoo, Y., Henfridsson, O., and Lyytinen, K. "The New Organizing Logic of Digital Innovation," Information
Systems Research (21:4) 2010, pp 724-735.

What makes technology ‘digital’?
The decoupling of digital information from the
material device that carries it
The separation of semiotic functional logic
from the physical embodiment that executes it
Yoo, Y., Henfridsson, O., and Lyytinen, K. "The New Organizing Logic of Digital Innovation," Information
Systems Research (21:4) 2010, pp 724-735.

With these properties,
interesting capabilities (can) emerge
Loose coupling: separation of contents and media
Self‐referencing: can address themselves
Individual agency: can do things on their own
Malleability: can be updated ‐ have ability to evolve
Very late procrastinated binding: value is co‐created
after appropriaton
Footprinting: leave user‐generated trace data

Because of these traits
and capabilities…
…the ontology of digital
technology is
evolutionary

39700 citations
20900 citations
96000 citations

“Empirical IS” Research:
Focus on the actor
Attitude
Expertise & experience
Personality
Intuition
Cognitive load
Other (f)actors . . .

“IS Engineering” Research:
Focus on the artifact
Features
Performance
Security
Usefulness
Accuracy
Reliability . . .

Evolutionary ontology requires
dynamic and relational theorizing
artefact
properties
noun
design
variance
ecosystem
affordances
verb
generativity
temporality

From asking
“what will the system be able to
do?”
or
“how good is the system?”
to asking
“what is happening next?”

From Actors & Artefacts to
entangled action (in context)

Five minutes of a visit to the
dermatology clinic
tStamp VISIT WORKSTN_ID ACTION_CODE ROLE CLINIC DXN1
2/2/15 8:53 1 BCAHHURDRM CHECKIN TIME Admin Tech HH Benign neoplasm
2/2/15 8:53 1 BCAHHURDRM MR_SNAPSHOT Admin Tech HH Benign neoplasm
2/2/15 8:53 1 BCAHHURDRM MR_REPORTS Admin Tech HH Benign neoplasm
2/2/15 8:56 1 URDERMDT3 AC_VISIT_NAVIGATOR Licensed Nurse HH Benign neoplasm
2/2/15 8:56 1 URDERMDT3 MR_HISTORIES Licensed Nurse HH Benign neoplasm
2/2/15 8:56 1 URDERMDT3 MR_ENC_ENCOUNTER Licensed Nurse HH Benign neoplasm
2/2/15 8:56 1 URDERMDT3 MR_VN_VITALS Licensed Nurse HH Benign neoplasm

Actors only
(e.g., social network graphs)

Action only
(e.g., process mining graphs)
“For real‐life event logs, the process maps are already fairly large, so
we generally try to avoid making them even larger...”

Actors performing Actions
with (IS) Artefacts
Pentland, B.T., Recker, J., Wyner, G., Ryan, J. "ThreadNet: A qualitative approach for
visualizing and analyzing processual phenomena," Unpublished Paper-under-review.

Example: Re‐discovering Handoffs
Pentland, B.T., Recker, J., and Wyner, G. "Rediscovering Handoffs," Academy of Management
Discoveries (3:3) 2017, doi:amd.2016.0018.

seeking new theories on
[sociomaterial, generative, digital,
evolutionary, processual, hybrid …
But definitely not just social or
technical]
reality
Yoo, Y., “Digital innovation, revised semiotics and generative economics”. Service Systems Forum 2015,
https://www.slideshare.net/yxy23yoo.

The phenomena we are interested
in do not (anymore) live in the
disciplinary structures we invented.

Characteristics of the digital
technology-infused world
• Digitally enabled complex socio-technical
phenomena
• Evolutionary, “smart” artefacts going beyond
initial design intents
• Unforeseen, non-linear emergent behaviours
• Large-scale digital trace data of ‘actions’

https://www.wired.com/2017/04/hey‐computer‐scientists‐stop‐hating‐humanities/

If we want to understand the digital
we actually have to study what it is
what people do and talk about when
they engineer, design, produce,
argue about, imagine, and
otherwise develop the digital.

“There is a reason they call it
hardware ‐ it’s hard.”

http://www.wisegeek.com/what‐does‐a‐software‐programmer‐do.htm

Seeking research modes that embrace
duality, temporality and change
From things to imbrication  co-design rather than
engineering
From actor to action  process-centric methodologies
From variance to drift  longitudinal research
From causality to possibility  modelling relations rather
than deterministic laws and sequences

It is a wonderful time to be an IS
engineer.
Finally, everything is in place.
No more hiding.

Prof. Dr. Jan Recker, PhD
Chair for Information Systems and Systems Development
Faculty of Management, Economics and Social Science
University of Cologne
email jan.recker@wiso.uni-koeln.de
web www.janrecker.com
twitter janrecker

CAiSE 2018 Keynote

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