Issues in software development practices : A South African software practitioners’ viewpoint

Software development is a process tasked withthe development of artefacts that are used toimplement organizational information systems.Depending on the social, economical andenvironmental setting, different softwarepractices are used. These, however, have aneffect on the resultant software product.In this paper, the authors investigate some of thesoftware development practices that are used inSouth Africa. Through the use of interviewtechniques, the study highlighted a plethora ofmethods, techniques and tools that are usedduring the software development process.This paper advocates for a paradigm shift in theway information systems are developed. Itmotivates for developers to consider the socialcontext of organizational information systemswhen developing software products. In a socialcontext, capturing the organizational culture,context and human aspect contributes to thesystem’s responsiveness and its adaptiveness tothe ever changing organizational environment.