Offering comprehensive coverage from traditional approaches through to the most recent agile methods, the book’s unique strength lies in its combination of descriptions and insight into methodologies, techniques and tools with the analysis of context, issues and real-world problems associated with information systems development. Retaining these existing strengths, the fourth edition has been thoroughly updated and revised to reflect progress in this fast-paced discipline and to include the authors’ recent experience of teaching with the text, as well as feedback from reviewers, colleagues and students.

New and substantially revised material in this edition includes:

• The growing professional and ethical aspects and requirements of systems development
• The process and issues of requirements elicitation and capture
• Agile development methods and themes
• Component development
• Open source software
• Data warehousing and data mining
• Outsourcing and offshoring of systems development
• Discussions of the importance the context of methods and techniques
• The effect of framing influences in relation to development and techniques
• Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM)