Information Systems Project in China: Action research and soft systems methodology

Developing Information Systems is a process fraught with danger and often resulting in failure. Failure rates now run at 80% and there is no sign of decline [16-18, 20, 21, 30, 31, 35, 36, 40]. If Information Systems (IS) projects are high risk even in industrialized societies, then projects in developing countries and newly emerging economies are even more prone to failure. Putting IS projects together with the developing economies would appear to be a recipe for disaster but this paper describes an IS project developed between the UK and China which has got to beta testing stage and shows early signs of success. The paper describes the process whereby the project was developed, the methodology applied and the problems and difficulties encountered. Taking as its point of reference the autumn 1999 review mission, the paper describes the situation for the Feasibility and Appraisal Information System (FAIS) at that time and draws out some policy and methodology learning issues relevant to others planning IS in similar contexts.