Value in eye of stakeholder

"Prioritization of stakeholder value needs to have a higher profile in IT"
was the starting point of this BCS software practice advancement specialist group last week, with speaker, Lindsey Brodie, who is researching this for her PhD at Middlesex.

Lindsey Brodie says that you need a method that allows people to talk about value, so that you can then identify which business modules stakeholders want to prioritise. She's assessed various prioritization methods, in particular Tom Gilb's impact estimation method, which uses quantified data and has found it better captures stakeholder viewpoints and value.

It sounds useful, though peripheral to my research. My interviewees have commented on the need to get stakeholders to prioritise their IS wants against their business aims. My research is about how you get your stakeholders together to talk. Lindsey's research assumes that you've got them together, can list what they're talking about and asks how you can best measure and prioritise.

Saving time with Nvivo

Qualitative data analysis software can save time (Silverman) is my answer to Minh's assertion here that Word is so good. He writes some provocative blogs, worth reading.

I use NVivo 8 to store, search and retrieve interview text from 30 transcripts. After transcribing I code it against:

1. general codes - process, structure, climate, facts, queries (see Checkland). For a query, I create linked annotations as to what the query is about and how I might follow it up.
2. Metaphors, stories and anecdotes or words that strike me. For example, in one case study, participants used the word 'gel'. IN another type of organisation, people, more than once referred to "skin in the game". The shard use of the terms may indicate the culture.
3. the theoretical framework for engagement, covering aspects of communication and knowledge-ability: mutuality, negotiation of meaning, environment, expertise, contribution, participation and adaptation.

Having coded, I use the NVivo query function. I'll search for a code to draw together all the text that I'd coded under facets of engagement. For a particular case study, I query all the relevant transcripts and documents and emails, copy and pate them into a Word document and then draw on them as reminders and examples as I write the analysis.

Another query I use is text query - I've heard a particular phrase - "Who said it?" I ask myself and search all the files to find it.

I use memos to create:

• a to do list
• a coding journal
• thoughts on each case
• thoughts one each code
• key issues that arise

To develop theoretical aspects, I link from a source file to one of the memos, though I'm not very sure yet of the technicalities. I think cross linking will become more important as I move into cross case analysis. Then Nvivo should be of help in developing the theoretical aspects of my study.

Matrix queries then will be the next facility to experiment with to see what patterns I can find with certain attributes.

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CHECKLAND, P. (1981) Systems thinking, systems practice.
SILVERMAN, D. (2005) Doing qualitative research : A practical handbook, London ; Thousand Oaks, Calif., Sage Publications.

Long documents in Word

Some of the final year PhD students complain that they can't get the software to do what they want. When you have a document of 80-100,000 words, Word isn't too good at handling it. I know you need to do things like have a main file that pulls in the other files as chapters, but there are headings, page numbers, contents and citations and references compatible with Endnote to consider, as well as how the appendices get numbered. Here is a helpful web site for all of Word. It includes a section on numbering appendices here.

I hope I can sort this all out in 18 months time.

Qualitative analysis

I've just realised that I could use NVivo, could have been using NVivo, to extract and analyse data from my literature review.

Why did no-one point that out before?

• Because supervisors don't need to know much about software and aren't going to point their students at it.
• Because there isn't training in using software, but training that is either about the product (e.g. Word, NVivo, Endnote) or about the process, and not how to integrate the two.

The best integration the OU has provided in the last two years was through the Professional Academic Communication in English sessions (PACE) when one of the lecturers explained how she'd used Endnote to keep notes and print them off or insert them in Word.

Here are slides that discuss the training issue, from the 2006 ESRC research methods festival. And here's a paper from Silvana di Gregorio on using NVivo to analyse literature for the review. And here's a discussion on qualitative data analysis.