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.

Living theory is a way of making use of personal accounts of experienced practice. As the Pac-Man perspective on organisational change helps the change agent articulate the personal values he is committed to and how these values may be resisted in practice, living theory is useful for developing knowledge that has a practical impact on self-improvement and social change, but it is also a type of theory that is difficult to publish in academic outlets. As a consequence of this, publishing Pac-Man living-theory research becomes a Pac-Man game in itself, with the journal editors as one of the four adversary gatekeepers, but it is a rewarding game for those who want to contribute both theoretically and practically on how to make the world a better place.

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.