Please join us in cordially congratulating Dr. Dinesh Batra (Florida International University), the 2020 AIS SIGSAND Outstanding Contribution Award (ASOCA) Winner. Dinesh Batra has made numerous and extensive contributions to the systems analysis and design community and The 2020-2022 AIS SIGSAND Executive Committee were unanimous in choosing him and Jeffrey Parsons as the 2020 ASOCA Award recipients.
Dinesh Batra is a Professor in the Department of Information Systems and Business Analytics at Florida International University. Dr. Batra’s publications have appeared in Management Science, Communications of the ACM, Journal of MIS, Journal of Systems and Software, European Journal of Information Systems, Decision Support Systems, Information and Management, Journal of Database Management, Communications of the AIS, International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, Data Base for Advances in Information Systems, Requirements Engineering Journal, Information Systems Management, and other journals.
He is a co-author of the book Object-Oriented Systems Analysis and Design, published by Pearson Prentice-Hall. He has served as an Associate Editor of the Communications of the AIS. Currently, he is the Special Issues Managing Editor of the Journal of Database Management and a Senior Editor of the Information Systems Management. He served as the first President of SIGSAND (2004-2006). He has chaired four dissertations, all in the area of SAND.
He received his Ph.D. from Indiana University, Bloomington, in MIS with a minor in Computer Science in 1989. He received his MBA from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale in 1985 and Bachelor in Technology from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi in 1979. From 1979-1983, he worked as a consultant at Engineers India Limited.
Publications
Over the years, Dinesh published numerous highest quality research papers on systems analysis and design in top journals and conferences. We also invite you to read his publications on GoogleScholar.
Below, we provide three of his favorite papers on SAND:
Conboy, K. (2009). Agility from first principles: reconstructing the concept of agility in information systems development. Information Systems Research, 20(3), 329-354.
Sarker, S., & Sarker, S. (2009). Exploring Agility in Distributed Information Systems Development Teams: An Interpretive Study in an Offshoring Context. Information Systems Research, 20(3), 440-461. doi:10.1287/isre.1090.0241
Dikert, K., Paasivaara, M., & Lassenius, C. (2016). Challenges and success factors for large-scale agile transformations: A systematic literature review. Journal of Systems and Software, 119, 87-108. doi:10.1016/j.jss.2016.06.013
Interview with Dinesh
Dinesh kindly agreed to answer our questions, which we feel are especially relevant for the scholars interested in pursuing systems analysis and design research.
Q1: Notable paper in SAND
Considering the long history of SAND publications, which one particular paper stands out for you, and why? What makes this paper special to SAND?
Dinesh Batra:
“I am thankful to Roman Lukyanenko, Arturo Castellanos, and Jon Beard for considering me for the SIGSAND outstanding contribution award. SIGSAND has a long history of high-quality publications. The annual SAND symposiums included preliminary versions of the research, which usually ended up in quality journals. SIGSAND serves as a forum for intense and useful feedback.
I do not find one particular paper that stands out for me. Still, I will later summarize the relevance of a paper that may become more prominent because of the tumultuous business climate engendered by COVID-19. First, I would like to provide a summary of the Systems Analysis & Design literature associated with SIGSAND, and the researchers who mentored and helped me with my research. Most of my colleagues have done better SAND research and deserve acknowledgments.
During the late 1980s, Ananth Srinivasan introduced gave me an initial idea while Jeff Hoffer, Bob Bostrom, and Joe Davis helped me formulate my dissertation on data models. The 1990s witnessed exciting work by Veda Storey, Sandeep Purao, Radhika Santhanam, and Solomon Antony on expert systems, by Keng Siau on the user-database interface, and Maung Sein on conceptual design. During 2000-2010, Ramesh Venkataraman and Jeff Parsons worked with me on the SAND proposal. After two initial meetings at FIU, Miami, the first SAND symposium was held at Newfoundland. We witnessed stimulating work by Yair Wand, Jeff Parsons, and Ron Weber on ontological foundations of SAND while Al Hevner, Sal March, and Sudha Ram proposed a seminal piece on the design science, which initiated its annual symposiums. Gove Allen and Vijay Khatri made outstanding contributions in the areas of modeling and querying. Sridhar Nerur, Venugopal Balijepally, Radha Mahapatra, Bala Ramesh, Lan Cao, Peng Xu, Radhika Jain, and Kannan Mohan started pioneering research on agile software development. Glenn Browne worked on requirements elicitation, and Steve Alter came up with the still popular work system method. During 2010-2020, we have seen promising SAND research from Roger Chiang, Roman Lukyanenko, Weidong Xia, Palash Bera, Matti Rossi, Akhilesh Bajaj, Richard Baskerville, Padmal Vitharana, and Arturo Castellanos. I apologize if I missed any of my colleagues who helped me with their thoughtful discussions.
The one paper that is very relevant today in the wake of the recent COVID-19 pandemic is the seminal piece on agility by Conboy (2009). The article provides a systematic operationalization of systems development agility. The Agile Manifesto was introduced in 2001, and although several methods such as XP and Scrum became popular, the practices were not always consistent. There were very few empirical studies, and practically none was based on a theoretical framework. A researcher may not easily discern a clear-cut dependent variable in the Agile Manifesto, given that it includes four values and twelve principles. For example, daily meetings and face-to-face interactions do not directly address the notion of agility. Without a precise operationalization of agility, academic researchers tend to avoid research models, and the findings have a narrow focus. The lack of theoretical frameworks continues to be a problem in empirical research in agile and large-agile software development.
With COVID-19 causing substantial uncertainty, software development has been a driving factor of agility observed in both the technology and non-technology industry sectors. For example, currently, several industry sectors are undergoing structural shifts using technology as a critical driver. Behind every such vital “technology,” there is software that is being delivered at breathtaking agility. We may, thus, reflect on (Conboy, 2009, p. 340) simple (but not simplistic) and profound definition of agility that addresses the current, dynamic environment: “the continual readiness of an ISD method to rapidly or inherently create change, proactively or reactively embrace change, and learn from change while contributing to perceived customer value (economy, quality, and simplicity), through its collective components and relationships with its environment.” If agility is the guiding mantra of the future, then the seminal operationalization and measurement garnered from this definition can be used to initiate a line of research that can improve software development. An example of such research follows.”
Q2: Topic of a SAND Dissertation
If you were to do a Ph.D. on the topic of systems analysis and design today, what would the title of that dissertation be? What would the dissertation be about? Why?
Dinesh Batra:
“I suggest the following title that can accommodate many variations: “The Antecedents of Agility in Companies in the Non-Technology Sectors.” Note that the dependent variable is not software development agility (which may be one of the antecedents), but it is agility at the firm level. The “why” aspect of the dissertation is quite clear. We could argue that the world transitioned from the industrial to the information era around 1980, after the birth of the personal computer. The world gradually shifted to the knowledge era around the new millennium, when data warehousing and mining started guiding organizational decisions. Some might rightfully claim that we are moving into the artificial intelligence (AI) era. However, I deem AI as a tool rather than an age that will most definitely have a significant impact on our lives. I purport that with the unfortunate arrival of COVID-19 in 2020, we have serendipitously entered the era of agility.
The agility of the firm necessitates support from the technology realm, which in turn is facilitated by software development agility. This chain of logic is plausible given that business has started treating most products as services, which benefit from automation and support thanks to the presence of software in a plethora of widely available devices. Fortunately, the large-scale agile researchers and practitioners have the know-how of supporting software development agility (e.g., by using Conboy’s operationalization of agility). The capability of the employees may be a significant construct in a research model. Agile research has also focused on constructs, such as collaboration, communication, coordination, and cultural aspects.
Dynamic capabilities may be a suitable theoretical framework for the research. In their book “Agility: How to Navigate the Unknown and Seize Opportunity in a World of Disruption,” Tilman and Jacoby (2019) suggest that a firm may be viewed as a portfolio of opportunities and risks. The definition provides a measurement path for agility at the firm level. A researcher should be able to define a comprehensive yet parsimonious structural model to investigate the dissertation topic.”
Q3: SAND in the Future
When you think about SAND 10 years from now (i.e., around the year 2030), what do you think would be the most actively researched topic then? Why?
Dinesh Batra:
“I feel that agility research may be a fascinating topic in the next decade or two. Schumpeter’s creative destruction will manifest itself in the form of agility. The world will view corporations as portfolios of opportunities and risks rather than as brick-and-mortar or Internet-enabled companies. Information technology (IT) will be the driver of the firm/organizational agility, and systems development and deployment will be the driver of information technology. In the COVID-ridden year 2020, we are witnessing an unprecedented magnitude of change in every aspect of our lives. IT companies now dominate the financial markets. People view products not just as physical objects, but more as services backed up by software and firmware. Software development will increase during the coming decade, and SAND researchers can help better understand its successful construction and deployment.
Many research constructs and models may have to be revised. Previous research has focused more on customers rather than employees. However, creative employees can generate innovative experiences, and in the process, create customers. An application that provides richer experiences can go viral in a short time and can be adopted by millions of customers. Who is more valuable then – the party that creates or the one that consumes such experiences? Agility rather than intelligence may become a more critical competency. Employees who can quickly formulate and test experiments that provide insights about customer acceptance may be more desirable. In this regard, software developers already familiar with the iterative method of working can offer meaningful value. The attributes of any employee, not just a software developer, will be a provoking research question as nations grapple with the scourge of unemployment and development of appropriate labor competencies. SAND researchers, who are familiar with agile software development, have much to contribute.
The role of AI in enhancing customer experiences will be invaluable. Software algorithms may improve the current AI capabilities, while AI can help developers with selecting features to enhance software development. For example, AI can help synchronization of teams as they complete pieces of a large software product. Virtual reality software development provides an exciting research area because it brings together human-computer and system development in formulating immersive experiences. Biotechnology and software development will co-create solutions for improving health and mitigating diseases. Collaboration between SAND and other research groups may be essential as software permeates every aspect of our lives.
SAND researchers will need to come up with new constructs; for example, when defining agility, it may be appropriate to replace “change” with “value-enhancing change.” Any proposed change will need to provide a cost-benefit justification; at times, it is even possible that not changing may have more net value. The goal of agility may need to be expanded from delivering value for just customers to offering value for both customers and employees. In most companies, employees will become as valuable as customers. The role of contracts in a fast-moving world will have to be assessed. Trust may become more critical than formal agreements, experience may become more desirable than wealth, and software may become more essential than currency.
Finally, SAND concepts may become a requisite for high-school and college education, regardless of the major. The software arena is teeming with domain-specific APIs, and programming has become more powerful and much more manageable. A large number of volunteers have provided open-source code and APIs for so many arenas. We should thank the software companies for their generosity in offering free educational software and platforms and hope that they continue to help with the literacy of the future generation. SAND researchers and practitioners will have much to contribute as we look forward to the next decade.”
Thank you, Dinesh!
Once again, we would like to congratulate Dinesh Batra on receiving the 2020 ASOCA award and wish to extend our profound gratitude for his outstanding service and his intellectual and pedagogical contributions to our society!
