chapter 3 described the collective impact of the sociotechnical-factor category on each of the three stages of the systems development life cycle. In the requirements stage, as indicated previously, because the emphasis is on deciding what the needs of the system must be, the sociotechnical factors play a limited role in making that determination. This is partly because of the critical role of the socioorganizational factors in the requirements determination. The project goals and objectives and changing requirements, which together constitute part of the sociotechnical-factor category, are also included in the socioorganizational-factor category. The cumulative impact of the sociotechnical-factor category is thus mildly critical compared to that of the socioorganizational-factor category in the requirements stage of systems development.The design stage, which deals with the technical issues of how to satisfy the systems requirements, is typically dominated by concerns about what is technically feasible. As a result, the technical-factor portion, which constitutes the majority of the factors in this category, plays a more critical role in the activities of the design stage than in the requirements stage. The sociotechnical factors are thus seen to be critical in tackling problems related to the design of the systems of the respective projects. Issues dealing with the project-team composition, technical expertise, and technology infrastructure of the organization are central to the satisfactory resolution of design issues associated with the entire development process. The influence of the social dimension of the sociotechnical-factor category tends to diminish as the development process moves forward to the implementation stage.The implementation stage deals more with the construction and testing of the designed systems, and with the integration of completed subsystems. The role of the project goals and objectives and changing requirements ideally should be quite limited at this later stage of the systems development process if the project is to be completed successfully. Any unresolved problems dealing with the scope of the project or its specifications cannot be responsibly addressed at this late stage in the development life cycle without severe delays in the schedule and possible increases in the estimated costs. Still, the dominance of the sociotechnical factors must not be discounted at the implementation stage because the issues that have a critical impact on the viability of the development process are fundamentally technical and technological. For example, the level of technical expertise and experience of the development team and project leadership combine with the available technical infrastructure to critically influence the outcome of the implementation stage. Consequently, the collective impact of the sociotechnical-factor category is deemed critical to the implementation success of the systems development process.
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