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used in information systems departments to teach issues related to project management,
risk assessment, information systems strategy, etc. The case is so well known that nu-
merous prejudices and preconceptions about the DIA project have become firmly estab-
lished in the information systems community. By re-analysing the case using critical
hermeneutics, we were hoping to reveal, to ourselves but also to our colleagues and our
students, new horizons of understanding into the roots of the DIA project failure.
Research method
In this investigation, we initially reviewed the source document - BAE Automated
Systems (A): Denver International Airport Baggage Handling System (Montealegre et
al., 1999) and subsequently we performed its analysis focusing on the identification of
actors, events, environmental factors and some of the authors' possible intentions in
leading the readers to reach the specific conclusions in the case study. In the process in
which we engaged, a number of iterations (cycles) through the document were made.
1. The first cycle was the preliminary reading and development of the first layer of
document (and its case) understanding.
2. The second cycle identified all the principal actors described in the document.
During this cycle, the deepening understanding of the case study was documented
with each actor's insights. By actors we mean the people actively engaged in the
phenomena described in the case study. Actors are instrumental in the outcomes
of events, which are of special interests to the researchers studying information
systems projects.
3. The third cycle looked at documenting everything that could be considered as
background, or existing environment surrounding the events under investigation.
Understanding of these existing environmental factors further reinforce (and in
some cases negate) the researchers' understanding.
4. The fourth cycle examined the decisions that were made by actors within their re-
spective environments, and the impact of these decisions. The actors' decisions in-
dicate their intentions in influencing the events pertaining to the information sys-
tems development.
The cycles 1-4 were conducted by one of this article's authors and the process resulted
in a very thorough factual horizon of the DIA case study understanding. Three additional
text documents were created in the form of tables that summarised and cross-referenced
the original case study.
The second author, at this point, joined in to provide a completely different view of the
case, thus developing an alternate horizon, which complemented and in some cases
contrasted the views and conceptions of the first investigator. The ensuing process of
collaborative hermeneutics
, as we call the use of multiple hermeneutic investigators, in-
troduced into the study a richness of views and insights, which clashed, were decon-
structed and eventually fused.
5.
The fifth cycle introduces the second investigator's perspective of the events repor-
ted in the DIA's case study (Montealegre et al, 1999), to bring some new and inde-
pendent insights. In contrast to the first investigator's approach, which was to im-
merse himself in the events surrounding the DIA case, the second investigator fo-
cused on the communicative intentions of the case study authors and on document-
ing his particular interpretations of each 'event' described. This approach brings
in the dialectic perspective to this research by questioning the motivation, bias and
prejudice of the case study authors.
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