7. Tailoring a Constructed Method

Having constructed a method using an SME approach, the first enactment should follow smoothly, since all situational constraints have been accommodated during its construction. However, on later endeavours, minor ‘tweaking’ may become necessary. Sometimes, management may decide to ‘freeze’ a base method upon which such modifications are to be made. Indeed, this thinking can also be imposed on an ‘off-the-shelf’ method, which requires project-specific customisation. These various kinds of modifications are generically known as ‘tailoring’. For example, Fitzgerald et al. (2003) note, from empirical studies, that ‘off-the-shelf’ methods need to be tailored to fit the needs of a specific project, even if the method appears to be appropriate and suitable for the project in hand (Aydin and Harmsen 2002). Fitzgerald et al. (2003) focus on the usefulness of (a) contingency factors and (b) method engineering and show how this was successful within a Motorola case study. Kokol (1999) argues that the failure of IT in the medical area can be attributed to the inappropriateness of the methodology used—offering method engineering as a remedy. Arni-Bloch et al. (2006) show how a situational method engineering approach to the integration of COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) packages into more traditional information systems can be efficacious.