The Role of Systems Designers in Organizations

Information Systems technology has been identified as one of the most potent tools and techniques available today to enhance productivity in organizations. However, for historical reasons, the role most information systems designers are playing is largely one of delivering information products to the members of an organizational hierarchy. This paper argues that such a role limits the scope for productivity improvements within the organization. It calls for an integrated work-information systems design role for systems designers. Such a role should enable systems designers to restructure the work environment with optimum utilization of IS technology for maximum productivity gains. In addition, some suggestions for achieving this goal and possible limitations are also discussed.