Ass.3 in MIS2

What are the two most frequently experienced causes of frustration of IS professionals and users while working on an IS plan?

What is Frustration?

Frustration is a common emotional response to opposition. Related to anger and disappointment, it arises from the perceived resistance to the fulfillment of individual will. The greater the obstruction, and the greater the will, the more the frustration is likely to be. Causes of frustration may be internal or external. In people, internal frustration may arise from challenges in fulfilling personal goals and desires, instinctual drives and needs, or dealing with perceived deficiencies, such as a lack of confidence or fear of social situations. Conflict can also be an internal source of frustration; when one has competing goals that interfere with one another, it can create cognitive dissonance. External causes of frustration involve conditions outside an individual, such as a blocked road or a difficult task. While coping with frustration, some individuals may engage in passive-aggressive behavior, making it difficult to identify the original cause(s) of their frustration, as the responses are indirect. A more direct, and common response, is a propensity towards aggression.

Causes:

To the individual experiencing frustration, the emotion is usually attributed to external factors which are beyond their control. Although mild frustration due to internal factors (e.g. laziness, lack of effort) is often a positive force (inspiring motivation), it is more often than not a perceived uncontrolled problem that instigates more severe, and perhaps pathological, frustration. An individual suffering from pathological frustration will often feel powerless to change the situation they are in, leading to frustration and, if left uncontrolled, further anger.

Frustration can be a result of blocking motivated behavior. An individual may react in several different ways. He may respond with rational problem-solving methods to overcome the barrier. Failing in this, he may become frustrated and behave irrationally. An example of blockage of motivational energy would be the case of the worker who wants time off to go fishing but is denied permission by his supervisor. Another example would be the executive who wants a promotion but finds he lacks certain qualifications. If, in these cases, an appeal to reason does not succeed in reducing the barrier or in developing some reasonable alternative approach, the frustrated individual may resort to less adaptive methods of trying to reach his goal. He may, for example, attack the barrier physically or verbally or both.

Here are some explanation about frustration of IS Professional

IT was supposed to make work easier, but IT glitches cause us to swear, throw things and miss out on seeing family and friends according to a survey by Touch paper. A third of end-users surveyed admitted to missing family and social commitments because a glitch had kept them at their desks late. Two thirds admitted to swearing, over half to missing deadlines, 45% to being in a bad mood all day and 15% have even resorted to throwing things. The findings show that often it is the poor old IT service desk worker who gets the brunt of people's frustrations when technology goes wrong. Four-fifths of service desk workers admitted they or a colleague had been verbally abused by disgruntled callers, and over a fifth had been tempted to resign their job on-the-spot after a particularly difficult call. Service desk workers voted male callers as more difficult than females. Senior staff and over 30s were also thought to be worse than younger, junior workers.


References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frustration
http://blog.flaphead.dns2go.com/archive/2005/11/23/3204.aspx