Rationalism vs. Incrementalism: two opposing or complementary strategies for effecting change in HEI web development

The paper examines rationalist and incrementalist approaches for effecting change in website management. Planning is a traditionally rationalist activity that requires specific objectives and timescales to be set, resources to be allocated, and assumes that a desired future state is indeed definable and achievable. The paper argues that the web is too diverse and broad in scope to be addressed as a whole in purely rationalist terms: successful development requires the intelligent application of incrementalist measures. The authors examine a number of rationalist and incrementalist measures in use at two UK HEIs. One approach stimulates incremental buy‐in by encouraging departments to either adopt standards recommended by a central web management team, or by contracting the team for web development and maintenance. A second “rationalist” approach attempts to define the ideal future state, and then implement the requisite technologies and practices as a campus‐wide standard. The paper discusses the pros and cons of rationalist and incrementalist approaches, and the need for a balance between each in a successful web strategy.