Organisational Semiotics Embedded in a System Development Cycle: A Case Study in a Business Organisation

Searching for competitiveness and excellence in quality, business companies have revisited their processes generating new demands for the Information Technology (IT) department, involving knowledge that goes beyond the software development itself: understanding the organisation, its processes and businesses as a whole. Regarding software development methods, we have perceived significant advances in the technical aspects of software development lately; but the same attention had not been directed to the domain analysis which could have serious consequences in the applications and in the company. As a way to contribute in this direction we have investigated the use of Organisational Semiotics in real contexts of systems development. A case study discussed in this paper involves the use of this theoretical basis in a real work situation for evaluation purposes.