Yes

Innovation is an integral part of every product development and therefore also important for ”Software as a Service” (SaaS) companies. However, as these companies do not develop for one customer in particular, it may be difficult to understand what features are to be developed in the future. Co-Innovation can be a solution. Co-Innovation proposes a collaboration between two companies for the benefit of both. In the case of SaaS, the other company can be a customer company. The cooperation between the two gives the SaaS company the opportunity to understand what features are wished for by the customer and the customer company gets a more customised software, that fulfills their requirements. This poses the research question: How could a framework for a Co-Innovation project between a SaaS provider and its customers look like? This study aims to answer this question by means of a case-study and by proposing a comprehensive framework for a Co-Innovation project. The proposed framework offers valuable insights and comprises four essential parts. Part one are the Roles involved in the Co-Innovation project. Part two is a Checklist used to evaluate possible Co-Innovation partners. Part three is an EPC process model outlines the step-by-step implementation of the aforementioned Checklist. Part four is a Gantt process that provides a detailed timeline of daily activities during the Co-Innovation project. By presenting this framework, the study answers the research question by offering a comprehensive description of how a Co-Innovation project can be executed, which can be readily adopted by diverse B2B-SaaS providers. Future research exploring the adaptation of this framework to other industries and types of companies holds promise for further advancements in the field.

Rapporten har ett fokus på Byggnads Informations Modeller (BIM), ett IT-tekniskt verktyg och arbetssätt som har vuxit fram i byggbranschen alltmer under de senaste åren. Hur detta IT-verktyg används hos medelstora byggentreprenadföretag redovisas i denna rapport.Syftet med rapporten är att verka positivt på utvecklingen mot effektivare och resurssnålare arbetsprocesser inom byggbranschen genom att bidra med kunskap om hur användandet av BIM ser ut bland dessa företag, varför det ser ut som det gör, ifall BIM behövs och vad som kan förändra läget i någon riktning.Metodarbetet har bestått av litteraturstudier och intervjuundersökningar.Arbetet inleddes med studier av rapporter och texter relaterade till BIM och intervjuer med representanter för ledande branschföretag inom bygg samt ett par branschorganisationer med inriktning på BIM. Därefter följde ytterligare litteraturstudier med inriktning på förändring och förändringsarbete och enkät och intervjuteknik. Arbetet ledde fram till olika grundteser och förklaringsmodeller som låg till grund för och utformade de intervjufrågor som ställdes vid huvudintervjuerna med elva medelstora byggentreprenadföretag.Huvudintervjuerna gav ett resultat som visade att företagen generellt sett såg på BIM som något positivt, med fördelar såsom lättare kommunikation och som ett hjälpmedel att minska fel i produktionen. Resultatet visade även att det fanns utmaningar såsom mjukvarukompabilitet och en beroendeproblematik mellan projektets involverade parter som innebar att för att tekniken ska kunna ge fördelar måste alla parter använda tekniken.Förklaringarna till det låga användandet bland medelstora byggentreprenadföretag var flera, vanligast var brist på krav från beställarna. Förklaringarna var också avsaknad av behov, kostsamma investeringar, konkurrerande målsättningar, kompabilitetsproblem med mjukvaror och avsaknad av kunskap om BIM.För att gynna en större användning föreslås att tekniska hinder elimineras genom standardisering och utveckling av arbetssättet och mjukvaran rörande BIM, det föreslås också att konkurrerande målsättningar elimineras genom kunskapsspridning om BIM i branschen, både hos entreprenörerna, -för att främja god utbildning så att personalen vill arbeta med tekniken, och hos beställare, -så att de börjar efterfråga BIM och därigenom ger tekniken konkurrensfördelar. / The report has a focus on Building Information Models (BIM), an IT-technical tool- and workmethod that have emerged increasingly in the construction industry in recent years. How this IT tool is used in medium-sized building construction companies is presented in this report.The purpose of the report is to promote positive development towards more efficient and resource-efficient work processes in the construction industry by providing knowledge on how the use of BIM exists among these companies, why it is the way it is, if BIM is needed and what can change the current status in any direction.The work-method has consisted of literature studies and interview surveys.The work began with studies of reports and texts related to BIM and interviews with representatives of leading construction industry companies and a couple of industry organizations with focus on BIM. This was followed by continued literary studies focused on change and change management, survey and interview techniques. This work led to various basic theories and explanatory models as the basis for and the design of the interview questions asked at the main interviews.The main interviews was conducted with eleven medium-sized building construction companies and gave a result that showed that companies generally looked at BIM as something positive with advantages such as easier communication and as a means to reduce errors in production. The result also brought some light to the fact that there existed challenges like software compatibility and dependency between the parties involved in the project, which means that for the technology to be able to provide wanted benefits all parties involved have to use the workmethod.The reasons for the low usage among medium sized construction contractors was several, the most common was the lack of demands of the clients. The reasons were also the absence of need, costly investments, competing objectives, compatibility issues with software and lack of knowledge of BIM.In order to promote a greater usage of BIM it is proposed that the technical obstacles are eliminated through standardization and development of the processing method and software, it is also proposed that the competing objectives are eliminated by spreading and increasing knowledge of BIM in the industry, both amongst entrepreneurs, -to promote good staff training so that the staff will want to work with the technology, and amongst construction clients, -so that they start asking for BIM and thereby provide the technology with a competitive edge.

Metateams are both largely unexplored in the IS literature and economically important to major corporations and their IT vendors. Metateams are temporary groups composed of two or more geographically and inter-organisationally dispersed teams, commercially linked by project-specific agreements and enabled by electronic means of communication. Each one of these teams fulfils a particular and measurable objective, enshrined in the team's goal hierarchy and contractual obligations. The combination of efforts from every team in a metateam, contributes to achieving a common distant goal of project implementation. Thus, metateams are temporary teams (or groups) of distributed teams working across distance, firms, and cultures. In metateams, each participant team works with other teams on organisationally heterogeneous collaborative projects. Metateams are new and potentially powerful work structures resulting from the convergence of outsourcing, virtual organisations, and demands for global competitiveness. They promise to build IT solutions of high complexity, by integrating expertise from different fields and organisations. With the assistance of communication technologies, metateams can conquer barriers of time and space, enabling collaborative endeavours across a nation or across the globe. In a global business environment that demands innovation, flexibility, and responsiveness, metateams represent a revolution in the way organisations and practitioners do IT projects. However, as this study found, managing metateams presents unique difficulties due to conflicting demands arising from multiple realities. This dissertation presents an empirical research using a grounded theory approach that studies a major IT project performed by a metateam. The conceptual account emerges from an exploratory study of a major IT development and implementation project in the telecommunication industry. The project involved three key organisations and teams based in Australia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. The core pattern emerging from this study is one of constant conflict discovery and resolution, a process that progressively, and at a cost, allows the project to evolve from its initial incongruence into either a working solution or into project abandonment. This theory-building study presents a theoretical model, grounded on rich empirical data, interrelating key concepts of cost, conflict, communication, and trust, which serves to explain the pattern of actions and to propose a number of practical conclusions and recommendations. This research was guided by two key research objectives: (a) to add theoretical content to the understanding of key processes enacted by metateams in performing IT project work; and (b), to develop a framework that assists researchers and practitioners in predicting, explaining, and evaluating events and process associated with metateams. To the author's best knowledge, this study describes for the first time in the IS literature, the metateam organisation and the significant contextual issues they confront. In doing so, the study develops an understanding, grounded on rich empirical data from the substantive field of metateams. This new understanding contributes to both IS research and practice and provides guidance for future research.

Syfte - Syftet med denna forskning är att främja förståelsen av hur slutanvändarbehov beaktas vid utformningen och genomförandet av offentliga e-tjänster. Metod - Forskningen genomfördes med en fallstudieapproach på Skatteverket, där fyra olika utvecklingsprojekt för e-tjänster undersöktes. Data samlades huvudsakligen in genom semistrukturerade intervjuer men även genom interna dokument och observationer. Resultat - Det används ingen enskild utvecklingsmetodik för att utveckla e-tjänster. Istället används flera olika metoder som i varierande omfattning lånar från Scrum eller andra agila metoder, samtidigt som metoderna styrs av ett underliggande sekventiellt tänk som liknar vattenfall-modellen. Vidare är det inte utvecklingsteamen som främst definierar eller fångar in slutanvändarbehov, utan teamen förlitar sig istället på projektexterna källor för detta. Det kan också konstateras att projekten i stor utsträckning inte utför någon systematisk uppföljning kring om slutanvändarnas behov har uppfyllts eller inte av den utvecklade e-tjänsten. Uppföljningen som görs är ofta informell eller endast muntlig och verkar vara hopslagen med att undersöka nya användarbehov och förbättringsområden. Bidrag – Det teoretiska bidraget omfattar bland annat att det visas att det finns flera sätt att utveckla e-tjänster på och att det i praktiken inte är en typ av utvecklingsmetod som följs utan snarare hybridmetoder. Luckor i teorin har också identifierats i form av vem som är tänkt att vara ansvarig för att upptäcka och definiera slutanvändarbehov samt vem som är i kontakt med slutanvändaren. En annan teoretisk lucka finns i hur uppföljning och utvärdering i ett e-tjänstutvecklingssammanhang bör utföras. Studiens empiriska bidrag betonar vikten av att involvera slutanvändare genom hela utvecklingsprocessen, behovet av att förtydliga ansvarsområden i och utanför utvecklingsteam och behovet av att införa systematiska uppföljningsprocesser om intresse finns av att mäta nyttan av människocentrerad utveckling. / Purpose - The purpose of this research is to advance the understanding of how end user needs are considered when designing and implementing government e-Services. Method - The research was conducted using a case study approach, investigating four different e-Service development projects at the Swedish Tax Agency. Data was mainly collected by conducting semi-structured interviews, but also through gathering internal documents and observations. Findings - There is no single development methodology used for developing e-Services. Instead several different methodologies are used and that they, in varying extent, borrow from Scrum or other agile methodologies while still being steered by an underlying sequential approach similar to the waterfall model. Furthermore, the development teams do not define nor capture many end user needs, but rather rely on project external sources for this. Also discovered was that the projects to a large extent do not perform any systematic follow-up to whether user needs have been met or not with the e-Service developed. The follow-up that is done is often informal or only oral and seem to be intermingled with deducing new user needs and improvement areas. Contributions - Conceptual contributions include showing that there are multiple ways of developing e-Services and that in practice not one type of development model is followed, but rather hybrid methodologies. Gaps in theory have also been identified: who is supposed to be responsible for discovering and defining end user needs as well as who is in contact with the end user; and how to view and perform follow-up and evaluation in an e-Service development context. The study’s empirical contributions highlight the importance of end user involvement through the entire development process; the need to clarify areas of responsibility in and outside the development teams; and the need for introducing systematic follow-up procedures if interested in measuring the benefits of HCD.

The main subject of this thesis is three development stages of eGovernment at USA, EU and Czech level. The aim of this thesis is to identiy different trends and attitudes in the process of electronization of administrative agendas. It analyzes the relevant legislative documents and key initiatives, which contributed to the development of eGovernment at the local level of the examined regions. The last chapters of this thesis also contains a brief outline of the future of eGovernment.