The purpose of this study is to gain an understanding of an agile way of working at an IT organization in a context of a surrounding and otherwise manufacturing industrial organization, when it comes to software development projects. Thus the study aims to answer whether to what extent agile methodologies are manifested at an IT organization, what is demanded of the IT organization in order to follow agile values and principles, and whether it is possible to develop software according to agile values and principles in an IT organization in the above mentioned context. The study has been carried out as a case study at a case company where an IT organization, within a larger organization, was investigated. The study consisted of a pre-study, a literature review and an empirical study followed by analysis of the gathered data. The pre-study aimed to give the authors relevant insights into the case company as well as to the available academic literature. During the pre-study eight initial interviews were conducted, at the case company, among project managers, methodology experts and group managers. The pre-study was used in order to define and refine the scope of this study. From this the authors investigated literature relevant to their findings in the pre-study and to the scope. The literature review was used to formulate the theoretical framework of this study. The theoretical framework is mainly based on academic journals complemented by various publications and books. The empirical study was conducted by investigations of four software development projects, at the case company. Here nine interviews were conducted among the project managers, customers of the projects, and with managers of the IT organization. The empirical study have then been analyzed using the theoretical framework in order to form the conclusions of this report. The theory presents benefits, drawbacks and demands when it comes to agile methodologies in software development. The importance of support from the IT department, and from the customer, to a project is especially highlighted in literature. The empirical study presents findings of both agile and non-agile projects operating in the above mentioned organization. Several advantages and drawbacks have been identified regarding agile projects in the organization. Also hinders for an agile way of working, in the form or organizational demands, extensive processes, limited support and customer commitment have also been seen. While benefits regarding agile projects can be identified, in the context of an IT organization functioning within a larger industrial manufacturing organization, several drawbacks and hinders are also prominent. The analysis show agile values and principles manifested in the IT organization agile practices are harder to identify. It is also seen that an organization should strive for agility on several organizational levels in order to support an agile way of working. Regarding the surrounding organization an agile way of working is seen to be possible. Furthermore several benefits are identified, for a customer, when it comes to agile projects. However agile methodologies are also seen to be demanding when it comes to time, commitment and external support. Putting this in the context of an IT organization developing business support systems for a surrounding organization the benefits, while still prominent, can be further discussed.

The Diploma thesis deals with selection of appropriate methods and tools for planning research projects. The theoretical part focuses on the general theory and the specifics of individual approaches, models and project management tools. Analytical part on the selection of appropriate managemenet elements based on examining enterprise environment. The practical part on the creation of a methodology and its projection to the work with supporting software.

The purpose of this study was to broaden the knowledge about organizational change towards an agile organization through exploring how the faktors; structure, culture, agility och psychosocial work environment interacts during this process and how the relationship manifests in practice. To achieve the purpose, the fowling questions guided the way: • In what ways can older organizational structures and organizational culture affect agile organizational change? • What effects on the psychosocial workplace environment may an organizational change towards agile organization generate. This qualitative study with deductive approach was based on an organization where the implementation of the agile form was conducted three years ago. The collection of data was based on three semi-structured interviews with representatives from HR, the union and the research team witch also has conducted a study of the organization. Content analysis was use as a method of preparing the data for the analysis, which was done so though a model based on the theoretical  starting points and previous research that have founded this study. The conclusions drawn by this study shows that parts of the organizations older structure an culture still are present inte the new organization and that they inhibited the anchoring of the new approach and way of working . The same situation applies to the opportunity of improved psychosocial work environment where the dominance of the older organizational form resulted in the opportunities remaining just that - in the areas of the organization where it wasn’t impaired. / Syftet med denna studie är att bredda kunskapen om den agila organisationsförändringen genom att undersöka hur faktorerna; struktur, kultur, agilitet och organisatorisk och social arbetsmiljö interagerar med varandra under processen och hur detta kan te sig i praktiken. För att uppnå syftet användes följande frågeställningar: • På vilka sätt kan äldre organisationsstruktur och organisationskultur påverka en agil organisationsförändring? • Vilka organisatoriska och sociala arbetsmiljökonsekvenser kan en agil  organisationsförändring få? Denna kvalitativa och deduktiva studie utgick ifrån en organisation där tidpunkten för implementeringen av det agila låg tre år tillbaka i tiden. Genom tre semistrukturerade intervjuer med representanter från HR, fack och det följeforskningsteam som också studerat organisationen, samlades det empiriska materialet in. Innehållsanalys användes som metod för bearbetning av materialet inför analysen, vilken gjordes utifrån en analysmodell baserad på de teoretiska utgångspunkter och den tidigare forskning som lagt grunden för arbetet. De slutsatser som kan dras av denna studie visar att delar av organisationens äldre struktur och kultur fortfarande lever kvar i den nya organisationsformen och att dessa hämmat hur väl de nya arbets- och förhållningssätten har förankrats. Detsamma gäller möjligheten till förbättrad organisatorisk och social arbetsmiljö då den äldre organisationsformens dominans gjort att möjligheterna förblev just bara möjligheter - i de delar där denna inte blev direkt negativt påverkad.

Being innovative allows organizations to be part of the rapid competitive and environmental shifts and requires the development of knowledge as it builds the pathway of innovation. Since most companies find it troublesome to effectively utilize their existing knowledge towards innovations and literature lacks to offer solutions, this study aims to determine factors that contribute to an enhancement of the spiral of knowledge as well as to develop a concept that provides counselling for business and academia on how to overcome this issue. Therefore, this study contributes with new insights to the field of research in knowledge management and innovation management as well as to organizations with a concept on how to operationalize knowledge management towards innovation. Based on literature review on innovation management, knowledge management and organizational agility, a hypothesis was established that claimed that agile feedback loops at the spiral of knowledge would facilitate the utilization of knowledge management towards innovation. Expert interviews allowed the identification of factors that are relevant for tapping the potential of knowledge towards innovation. The analysis of their responses disclosed a common request to include feedback during the knowledge transformation but also revealed that design thinking and an innovative organizational culture are further relevant factors. Thus, the study postulates a concept that refines the spiral of knowledge to the ‘spiral of knowledge and innovation’, which extents the ‘spiral of knowledge’ with agile feedback loops, design thinking as well as an innovative organizational culture.

Today’s enterprises are operating in a highly complex environment with rapid disruptions from different areas such as technology, regulations or market, all of them capable of bringing the entire industry upside down. And many large organizations are adopting agile software development methods as part of their continuous push towards higher flexibility and shorter lead times. Agility, however, introduces challenges and problems for the engineering of enterprises, yet few reports on organizational alignment in this regard are available in the literature. This problem of alignment between business/operations and IT has been around for as long as computers have been introduced to the work offices and is still today an important issue for enterprises of any kind. This thesis, therefore, tries to investigate the lack of insight or fragmented knowledge regarding organizational design or architecture of modern enterprises in both academia and industry. The purpose of this thesis is to explicate the challenges and recommendations found in research papers, industrial whitepapers and interviews in order to propose guidelines for achieving better alignment. The goal of this thesis is to provide an inventory of available researches in the area of Business and IT Alignment (BITA) and organizational science in order to help suggest a basis for future research. For this purpose, a Design Science Research (DSR) strategy has been followed in combination with a literature review accompanied by two rounds of interviews as a means for data collection and evaluation. The artefacts resulting from this thesis take the form of fifteen guidelines extracted using coding analysis from the literature review and a first round of interviews at a major Swedish vehicle manufacturing enterprise. The guidelines were subsequently evaluated in a second round of interview with an industry expert reviewing the correctness and usefulness of the guidelines. The results of the evaluation proved that guidelines were useful for both the academia and industry experts. Hence, enabling the author to claim that a tentative proposition has been achieved. / Dagens företag arbetar i en mycket komplex miljö med snabba störningar från olika områden som teknik, regler eller marknader, som alla kan vända hela branschen upp och ner. Och många stora organisationer använder sig av agila programvaruutvecklingsmetoder som en del av deras kontinuerliga tryck mot högre flexibilitet och kortare ledtider. Agilitet eller snabbfothet medför emellertid utmaningar och problem för konstruktion av organisationer, men få rapporter om organisatorisk anpassning i detta avseende finns tillgängliga i litteraturen. Detta problem med anpassningen mellan verksamhet och IT har funnits så länge datorer har introducerats på arbetsplatserna och är än idag en viktig fråga för organisationer av alla slags. Denna avhandling försöker därför undersöka bristen på insikt eller fragmenterad kunskap om organisationsdesign eller arkitektur hos moderna företag i både den akademiska världen och såväl industrin. Syftet med denna avhandling är att beskriva de utmaningarna och rekommendationerna som finns i forskningspapper, industriella vitböcker och intervjuer för att föreslå riktlinjer för bättre anpassning. Målet med denna avhandling är att tillhandahålla en inventering av tillgängliga forskningar inom området Business and IT Alignment (BITA) och organisationsvetenskap för att kunna föreslå en grund för framtida forskning. För detta ändamål har en Design Science Research (DSR) strategi följts i kombination med en litteraturstudie åtföljd av två intervjuomgångar som ett medel för datainsamling och utvärdering. Artefakterna som härrör från denna avhandling har formen av femton riktlinjer extraherade med hjälp av kodningsanalys från litteraturstudien och en första intervjuomgång hos ett stort svenskt fordonstillverkningsföretag. Riktlinjerna utvärderades därefter i en andra intervjuomgång med en branschexpert som granskade riktigheten och användbarheten av riktlinjerna. Resultaten av utvärderingen visade att riktlinjerna var användbara för både akademin och branschexperter. Därför gör det möjligt för författaren att hävda att en preliminär proposition har uppnåtts.

Hanteringen av krav är en essentiell del för att lyckas leverera det som kunden efterfrågar hos ett system. Flertalet forskare pekar på att ett misslyckat IT-projekt grundar sig i felhantering av krav. Kringliggande faktorer som påverkar kravhanteringen har identifierats som kommunikation och dokumentation. Syftet är att undersöka de utmaningar och framgångsfaktorer som förekommer inom agil kravhantering, med avseende på arbetet enligt SAFe. För att kunna identifiera utmaningar och framgångsfaktorer tillämpas empirisk datainsamling, kompletterad med befintlig teori. Undersökningens metod har genomförts i enlighet med en kvalitativ forskningsstrategi, där fem semistrukturerade intervjuer har tillämpats vid den empiriska datainsamlingen. Den kvalitativa studien har använt sig av en abduktiv forskningsansats, detta i syfte att pendla mellan empiri och befintlig teori. Urvalet som har tillämpats i denna undersökning använder en konfidalitet och har tilldelats fiktiva namn, med anledning av att säkerställa trygghet hos respondenterna. Den insamlade empirin har analyserats och diskuterats utifrån befintlig teori som är relevant och stärker undersökningens trovärdighet. Utmaningar som vi har identifierat inom arbetet enligt SAFe är bland annat kopplat till prioritering och anpassning till organisationen. Resultatet påvisar även utmaningar gällande planeringen, med anledning av de långa cyklerna, likaså är anpassningen till den agila rytmen inom alla avdelningar hos organisationen en utmanande aspekt i arbetet. Våran undersökning har påvisat att SAFe har medfört gynnsamma fördelar med organisationens arbete, bland annat förbättrad transparens genom en ökad insikt i varandras arbeten. Likaså visar vår undersökning att den agila kravhanteringen har bidragit med gynnsamma fördelar i hur kraven hanteras, där sprintar och små leveranser är centralt inom arbetet. Beträffande empiri kontra befintlig teori, påvisas likheter och skillnader som bör betraktas, de utmaningar och framgångsfaktorer som förekommer inom empirin är omtalade i befintlig teori. Däremot presenterar befintlig teori endast generella aspekter som förekommer i det agila arbetet. Empirin bekräftar de utmaningar och framgångsfaktorer som omnämnas i befintlig teori, men är mer i linje med respondentorganisationens situation och verklighet. De slutsatser som vi har kommit fram till är att befintlig teori presenterar övergripande aspekter utan någon specifik anknytning till en organisations situation. Empirin visar att SAFe har anpassats för att möta respondentorganisationens behov, där teoretiska utmaningar och framgångsfaktorer har bekräftats och kompletterats. / The management of requirements is an essential part of successfully delivering what the customer demands from a system. The majority of researchers point out that a failed IT project is based on mishandling of requirements. Surrounding factors that affect requirements management have been identified as communication and documentation. The purpose is to investigate the challenges and success factors that occur within agile requirements management, with regard to the work according to SAFe. In order to identify challenges and success factors, empirical data collection is applied, supplemented with existing theory. The survey's method has been carried out in accordance with a qualitative research strategy, where five semi-structured interviews have been applied to the empirical data collection. The qualitative study has used an abductive research approach, with the aim of commuting between empiricism and existing theory. The sample that has been applied in this survey uses a confidentiality and has been assigned fictitious names, due to the safety of the respondents. The collected empirical evidence has been analyzed and discussed based on existing theory that is relevant and strengthened the credibility of the investigation. Challenges that we have identified within the work according to SAFe are, among other things, linked to prioritization and adaptation to the organization. The result also shows challenges regarding the planning, due to the long cycles, as well as the adaptation to the agile rhythm within all departments of the organization and challenging aspects in the work. Our investigation has shown that SAFe has brought favorable benefits to the organization's work, including improved transparency through and increased insight into each other's work. Likewise, our thesis shows that the agile requirements management has contributed with favorable advantages in how the requirements are handled, where sprints and small deliveries are central to the work. Regarding empiricism versus existing theory, similarities and differences that should be considered are demonstrated, the challenges and success factors that occur within empiricism are discussed in existing theory. In contrast, existing theory only presents general aspects that occur in agile work. The empirical evidence confirms the challenges and success factors mentioned in existing theory, but is more in line with the respondent organization's situation and reality. The conclusions we have reached are that existing theories present overall aspects without any specific connection to an organization's situation. The empirical evidence shows that SAFe has been adapted to meet the needs of the respondent organization, where theoretical challenges and success factors have been confirmed and supplemented.