Methodological constraints in researching systems development work

The author describes the problems and constraints experienced when researching an in-house team of system developers working on a groupware project. These constraints partly shaped the approach to field work and led to the need to use multiple methods of data collection. The developers themselves used many ways of coordinating the project which cut across established team structures and cultures. Multiplicity of datasets is therefore intrinsic to the subject of the study. Template analysis is being employed as a technique to analyse the diverse datasets.