Developing a Methodology for Online Service Failure Prevention: Reporting on an Action Design Research Project-in-Progress

TL;DR

This paper presents the initial phase of developing a methodology for preventing online service failures, grounded in a theoretical framework and using action design research to guide its development.

Contribution

It introduces a new theoretical framework for online service failure prevention and outlines the initial draft of a comprehensive prevention methodology.

Findings

Developed a theoretical framework for failure prevention

Created an initial draft of the prevention methodology

Outlined future research phases and preliminary conclusions

Abstract

The increasing use of online channels for service delivery raises new challenges in service failure prevention. This work-in-progress paper reports on the first phase of an action-design research project to develop a service failure prevention methodology. In this paper we review the literature on online services, failure prevention and failure recovery and develop a theoretical framework for online service failure prevention. This provides the theoretical grounding for the artefact (the methodology) to be developed. We use this framework to develop an initial draft of our methodology. We then outline the remaining phases of the research, and offer some initial conclusions gained from the project to date.