Using a design-science approach for effective corporate performance management systems development

Corporate Performance Management (CRM) has been long recognised as having an important role to play in the effective management of organisations. However, in order to develop IT support for CPM activities, several researchers have identified that developing CPM systems can be difficult and can have a low success rate. The developer needs a clear idea of the characteristics of CPM systems, and clear guidelines on how to effectively develop such a system. Using a design science approach, the core of this project involves the construction of a primary design artefact: a CPM system development method, called RED-CPM that uses existing theories of data quality, data warehousing, and evolutionary development as focusing constructs. To ensure the feasibility and effectiveness of the design artefact in practice, RED-CPM was evaluated in two participatory case studies of CPM system development projects at two large manufacturing organisations in Thailand. The results and knowledge obtained from the initial case were used to improve the artefact and inform the design of the second case study. The development methodology proposed in this study includes a limited set of CPM system features and development activities that can be used as guidance for practitioners to increase development reliability and the likelihood of success. This research also provides an agenda for further academic research.