Early adoption of flow artefacts in ISD: An activity theory perspective

Anecdotal evidence suggests flow techniques in information systems development (ISD) are highly effective and rapidly growing in popularity. Despite this, empirical research on ISD flow and particularly on the negative aspects of these methods is sparse. This research applies Activity Theory (AT) to examine the early adoption of flow techniques in two companies. AT is particularly pertinent in the context of this study as rather than view contradictions, which can manifest as tensions and breakdown in communications as a threat to flow techniques, it shows how contradictions and congruencies can be used to identify new ways of enacting flow. This study makes three contributions, namely (i) the AT framework is applied to fit ISD; (ii) an illustration of how AT is used to surface pre-existing contradictions in early adoption of flow artefacts, and (iii) an increased understanding of the interactions between flow artefacts and their social context.