CONTINGENCY THEORY TO SELECT AN INFORMATION REQUIREMENTS DETERMINATION METHODOLOGY.

The system development life cycle is the central concept in currently-used methods of managing and controlling the determination of information requirements and designing and implementing processing systems to meet those requirements. When organizations specify the use of formal life-cycle-based methods for all application developments, the results are mixed. The method may be helpful, but in many cases, it may be detrimental. A single life-cycle method is not appropriate for all cases because applications differ in the certainty with which requirements can be established. This paper describes the contingencies which define the uncertainties in the determination of information requirments and describes alternative strategies for information requirements determination given different levels of uncertainty.