Proper information management is crucial to ensure productivity during the development of Information
Systems (IS). One factor that has greatly impacted productivity is IS environmental volatility; this can be
de"ned as the rapid rate of change in environments where IS are employed. This problem is compounded by
the fact that environmental change is accelerating, as global enterprises become increasingly complex and
dynamic in nature. Increasing IS environmental volatility leads to increasing user uncertainty concerning IS
needs; this can have a very detrimental e!ect on the productive development of IS. Current IS development
models, such as the Waterfall, Prototyping, and Evolutionary models, are not designed to accommodate
these factors. Hence, a new model is necessary to ensure productive IS development. In this article, the author
will discuss an inadequacy of current models, and propose a model to e!ect greater productivity in the
development of IS. ( 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.