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Intro -- Foreword DAPMARC'2015 -- CONTENTS -- 1. Are All We Need Heroes? - The New Role of the IT Project Manager -- 2. Fast or Smart? How the Use of Scrum Can Influence the Temporal Environment in a Project -- 3. Hidden Goals in Projects: A Qualitative Exploratory Study of their Occurrence and Causes -- 4. "Frontload" in Complex Project Program Management to Aim for Lifetime Sustainability of Offshore Windmill Parks -- 5. Metaphors in Projects - An Overlooked X-factor -- 6. Bridging Gaps between IT and Business: An Empirical Investigation of IT Project Portfolio Management using Process Mining and P3M3 Maturity Model -- 7. Governance of Projects and Value Generation in Project-oriented Organizations -- 8. Theory Meets Practice: Practical Implications of Process Theory in Project Management.

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to use translation theory to develop a framework (called FTRA) that explains how companies adopt agile methods in a discourse of fragmentation and articulation.


Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative multiple case study of six firms using the Scrum agile methodology. Data were collected using mixed methods and analyzed using three progressive coding cycles and analytic induction.


Findings
In practice, people translate agile methods for local settings by choosing fragments of the method and continuously re-articulating them according to the exact needs of the time and place. The authors coded the fragments as technological rules that share relationships within a framework spanning two dimensions: static-dynamic and actor-artifact.


Research limitations/implications
For consistency, the six cases intentionally represent one instance of agile methodology (Scrum). This limits the confidence that the framework is suitable for other kinds of methodologies.


Practical implications
The FTRA framework and the technological rules are promising for use in practice as a prescriptive or even normative frame for governing methodology adaptation.


Social implications
Framing agile adaption with translation theory surfaces how the discourse between translocal (global) and local practice yields the social construction of agile methods. This result contrasts the more functionalist engineering perspective and privileges changeability over performance.


Originality/value
The use of translation theory and the FTRA framework to explain how agile adaptation (in particular Scrum) emerges continuously in a process where method fragments are articulated and re-articulated to momentarily suit the local setting. Complete agility that rapidly and elegantly changes its own environment must, as a concomitant, rapidly and elegantly change itself. This understanding also elaborates translation theory by explaining how the articulation and re-articulation of ideas embody the means by which ideas travel in practice.

Outsourcing is now a feasible means for enterprise systems (ES) cost savings, but does however increase the complexity of coordination substantially when many organizations are involved. We set out to study ES outsourcing in a large Scandinavian high-tech organization, SCANDI, a case setting with many inter-organizational partners, trying to answer the question: Why does SCANDI engage in these very complex outsourcing arrangements? To answer this question we have analyzed documents, observed meetings and gathered data from interviews in four parts of SCANDI. The first data analysis found just the rational front stage cost-saving explanation; but then, with a more careful analysis focusing on institutional factors, other backstage explanations "behind the curtain" were uncovered, such as management consultants with a "best practice" agenda, people promoting outsourcing, thereby being promoted themselves, and a belief in outsourcing as a "silver bullet": a recipe to success, solving everything

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to suggest that translating a design theory (DT) into practice (e.g. creating an instance design artifact (IDA)) is hardly straight-forward and requires substantial creativity. Specifically the authors suggest that adopting a DT embodies a creativity passdown effect in which the creative thinking of a team of design theorist(s) inherent in DT invokes a creative mind of a team of artifact instance designer(s) in creating an IDA. In this study, the authors empirically investigate the creativity passdown effect through an action case in which a DT (DT nexus) was applied in creating an IDA (multi-outsourcing decision-making tool).Design/methodology/approach– The case methodology applied here is described as an action case. An action case is a hybrid research approach that combines action research and interpretive case approaches. It combines intervention and interpretation in order to achieve both change and understanding. It is a form of soft field experiment with less emphasis on iteration and learning and more on trial and making. The approach is holistic in philosophy, and prediction is not emphasized. The intervention in the case was that of an instance designer team introducing a previously published DT as a basis for creating an IDA.Findings– The experience in the action case suggests that using a DT in creating an IDA may encourage design thinking, and in certain way increase its power and practical relevance by fostering the creative mind of instance designers. Indeed, DTs provide a scientific basis for dealing with an instance problem, and this evokes the creativity mind of instance designers. Without such a scientific basis, it is a lot more challenging for instance artifact designers to deal with instance problems.Research limitations/implications– This study contributes to the literature concerning design science research, as it challenges the notion that adopting scientific design knowledge limits creativity inherent in creating IDA by illustrating creative elements involved in adopting DT as a basis for creating IDAs.Practical implications– This study offers implications to practice, as it provides new insights regarding how DT can be used in instance design activities.Originality/value– A report of this research previously appeared as a conference paper. However, the attached journal version has been completely rewritten to additionally contribute to the literature concerning design science research beyond the conference version. More specifically, in this version, the authors conceptualize adopting a DT to build an IDA as a theoretical basis, and the authors challenge the notion that adopting scientific design knowledge limits creativity inherent in creating IDA by illustrating creative elements involved in executing DT as a basis for creating IDAs.

Foreword : DAPMARC 2016 -- Accreditation and participatory design : an effects-driven road to quality development projects -- A framework for project governance in major public IT projects -- Experiencing social complexity in projects as 'tipping points' -- Identifications of critical success factors for project portfolio management : results of a multiple case study -- The challenges of evaluating and comparing projects : an empirical study of designing a comparison framework -- Using simulation to study decision-making in project portfolio management -- When stage setting a success gets in the way of real learning

PurposeThis paper aims to introduce this special issue of ITP on systems for human benefit (S4HB), to develop and promote the idea of S4HB, and advocate that more research be conducted on the design and diffusion of S4HB.Design/methodology/approachThis conceptual paper argues that S4HB are systemically under‐researched based on a historical perspective on IS research and proposes an agenda for research on the design and diffusion of S4HB.FindingsThe paper identifies extant areas of S4HB, such as health and education, but also advocates that new areas of S4HB be identified and new kinds of S4HB be designed. It further discusses how diffusion is a key issue to the realisation of human benefits and contrasts diffusion of S4HB with more commercial business systems as a motivator for further research. Finally it sets out a brief agenda for research in S4HB, including: development of a vision for research on S4HB that emphasises design for solving human problems; research on diffusion of S4HB; revision of the way impact is assessed by journals to include assessment of the significance of the problem and the achievement of human benefit; and promotion of a research culture, policies, and funding that emphasises S4HB.Originality/valueThis is the first paper to pull together a common perspective on the disparate areas of S4HB. The paper identifies what S4HB are, what their goals are, what areas are concerned, and sets out an agenda for what research is needed to realise them and their benefits in society.