A UK Government IS Project: Inherent Cultural Issues of a Bureaucratic Environment Impacting upon a RAD-type Development

A large and complex Information System development project adopting an RAD style development approach is currently being implemented within UK Regional Government. It is considered to be unique within the UK because traditionally government projects adopt a more formal and structured approach to system development such as SSADM (Structured System Analysis and Design Method). Through a case study approach, the paper informs on two major impacts of organisational culture that were experienced in applying such an agile development approach within a structured and hierarchical driven environment. More specifically it discusses the cultural implications associated with requirements elicitation and decision-making that had a significant affect upon the development approach. In conclusion it presents preliminary analysis that enables the researcher to suggest some critical success factors that could be applied within similar development arenas