Books by Petter Ogland

This book addresses the problem of designing sustainable canonical action research (CAR) for studying aspects of the information systems development cycle when well-established principles and success criteria are difficult to meet. It covers the methodological issues that arise when action research methods are conducted, provides examples of action research in practice, and summarises philosophical foundations of action research and its application as a methodology in Information Systems research and research programs.

It has been argued that the reason seventy percent of all IT projects fail is due to lack of a formal system for guiding and monitoring IT decisions. Organisations having explicit IT governance systems are generally twice as successful as those with poor governance, given the same strategic objectives, but implementing IT governance can be difficult. In this book, Dr. Ogland looks at the public sector and argues that the implementation of IT governance has to be done through bootstrapping. The bootstrap algorithm (BA) is a time-tested approach that is known to work, but it is an approach that breaks with much of the logic of the public sector bureaucracy and is expected to be met with resistance. By analysing patterns in a study of trying to convince a Norwegian public sector organisation to implement IT governance through the use of the BA, the book is able to provide rich insights on what causes failure and how to make the implementation process succeed.