Crisis training exercises play a vital role in preparing local and regional governments for the management of crises and disasters. Unfortunately, conducting sufficient training is demanding, especially in small municipalities, due to constrained time and personnel resources, but also complex planning and scheduling of the dominant on-site training methods. Virtual training has been suggested as a resource-efficient and flexible  complement. However, despite numerous specifications of digital technology for training, research on organisational implementation and usage is lacking, indicating a low uptake. This article presents a cross-border R&D effort to facilitate the digitalisation of crisis management training by developing generic virtual tabletop exercises (VTTXs) to be shared via a repository, and (re-)used in, and adapted for, diverse contexts. The purpose of this article is to identify essential aspects in designing and conducting virtual tabletop exercises (VTTXs) for collaborative crisis management training.

Purpose The purpose of this study is to apply the concept of organizational ambidexterity as a conceptual lens to increase the understanding of tensions between exploitation (continuity) and exploration (change) in Agile software development (ASD) project teams, and particularly the balancing (ambidextrous) strategies utilized. Design/methodology/approach A conceptual framework was constructed from interdisciplinary sources on ambidexterity. A literature review of publications on ambidexterity in ASD was then performed, and the results from the selected publications were classified according to an extension of the conceptual framework. Findings Contextual ambidexterity in ASD is affected by the four basic coherent concepts: time, task, team and transition. The study found that most ambidextrous factors and strategies were task and team-related. In addition, a mixture of hard (performance) strategies and soft (social) strategies is needed in order for people/teams to (be able to) become ambidextrous. Practical implications To provide a better understanding of ASD, it is important to identify a broader set of ambidextrous factors and strategies that can impact ASD project teams. The expanded conceptual framework can serve as a basis for future empirical research and provide insights to practitioners on how to strengthen ambidexterity in ASD projects. Originality/value The contribution is of great importance for ASD research and practice, as ASD methods are a popular method for managing projects within ASD and in other nonsoftware organizations. In addition, as more and more organizations struggle to deal with rapidly changing environments, interest in the phenomena of paradoxical tensions and the strategy (ambidexterity) to deal with these tensions increase.

Genomförandet av övningar är en nyckel till stärkt förmåga att agera effektivt i kris. CriseIT-projekten har haft som mål att bidra till detta genom att skapa möjligheter för kommuner och andra aktörer med krisövningsbehov att öva enklare och oftare.

Det finns en önskan om, och en medvetenhet om behoven av, att öva mer än vad som görs i nuläget i många organisationer. Digitala verktyg är ett sätt att göra det möjligt att öva oftare, med lägre resursåtgång och kortare tid för planering och genomförande. Corona-pandemin har ytterligare gjort det tydligt vilka möjligheter digitaliseringen innebär för att effektivisera processer som tidigare varit inramade av tids-och rumsbegränsningar –t.ex. övning.

Denna rapport syftar till att på ett lättillgängligt sätt redogöra för och diskutera utmaningar och möjligheter med den digitala övningsprocessen, så som den kommit till uttryck i CriseIT-projekten, genom att beskriva metodiska arbetssätt för design, genomförande och utvärdering av digitala krisövningar samt några perspektiv på implementering av digital övningsmetodik i organisationer. Målgrupp för rapporten är den som arbetar med krisberedskap i offentlig eller privat verksamhet, och som önskar lära sig mer om möjligheten att digitalisera sin övningsprocess. Arbetsrapporten är del av resultatredovisning för CriseIT2.

Övning ger färdighet och det gäller inte bara i traditionell undervisning utan också vid krisledning. Krisledning kännetecknas av att medlemmarna i en krisledningsgrupp ska ansvara för sina respektive verksamhetsområden och genom snabb interaktion och samordning över verksamhetsgränserna mildra effekterna av krisen för organisationen eller samhället som helhet. Det innebär att rollmedvetenhet och kommunikationsförmåga måste tränas för den enskilde så väl som för gruppen som helhet. På gruppnivå är också samverkan och koordinering internt och externt viktigt att öva. Tidigare studier visar att organisationer är intresserade av möjligheten att öva mer via digitala verktyg (Wik et al., 2017). Inom ramen för det till och med 2021 pågående Interregprojektet CriseIT 2 utvecklar vi ett koncept för övningsstöd baserat på lärplattformar. Kapitlet beskriver genom en fallstudie hur en seminarieövning kan genomföras med stöd av lärplattformen Canvas. Data till studien har samlats in genom observationer, enkäter, storgruppsdiskussion och deltagarnas indata till Canvas. Erfarenheter från fallstudien sammanfattas i möjligheter, problem och förbättringsbehov kopplade till Canvas och övningsdesignen, och rekommendationer ges både för krisövning och för undervisning baserad på problematisering och dilemmaövningar i klassrummet.

In this paper, we identify, analyze and propose generic requirements for software aiming at supporting crisis management training in local governments. The study builds on a Swedish-Norwegian R&D project based on a quadruple helix model. A design science approach was applied and the artifact presented in this paper is a list of generic requirements. The generic requirements are divided into overall requirements, requirements connected to the trainer’s role and requirements connected to the trainee’s role. The requirements are also mapped to the problems and opportunities identified in the project. Finally, we present examples of elaborations of the addressed requirements based on software design considerations. The presented requirements and the systems development process that was used provide guidelines for systems analysts and developers in future systems development projects aiming at constructing new software for crisis management training.

The ongoing digital transformation in government has enabled innovative changes in operational processes and service. However, while e-services and social media are widely adopted, earlier studies indicate that this transformation is still being awaited in other areas, such as crisis or disaster preparedness. Recent events such as the 2018 wildfires in several parts of Europe, as well as empirical research, highlight the need for more (systematic) training of local governments’ crisis management teams. Conventional training methods are time- and space-dependent and require long-term planning, making it complicated to increase the extent of training. In this interdisciplinary study, we report on the results from the Swedish-Norwegian CriseIT project that aimed to develop information systems (IS) for crisis management training. The purpose of the article is to describe information systems designed to support local governments’ crisis management training and to discuss how these artefacts could improve crisis management training practices.

Crisis preparedness is of great importance to many actors in society. Maintaining crisis preparedness is an arduous task that requires frequent exercises. However, many actors have trouble accomplishing this because planning and conducting exercises are time consuming and involve high costs. Digitalization of crisis training has been suggested as a way to partly overcome these obstacles. In this paper, we present the results of a pilot study on an exercise in a digital crisis training tool. Trainees were interviewed and a content analysis was performed on the data. The analytical categories consisted of requirements for a crisis training tool, developed in our previous work. The results of the analysis show that the pace of an exercise, the number of trainees and the number of asynchronous and synchronous modules are all related to boundaries of digital crisis training. These boundaries need to be further explored.

In this paper we analyze and present the generic requirements identified for a software aiming at supporting crisis management training in local governments. The generic requirements are divided into overall requirements, requirements connected to the trainer’s role and requirements connected to the trainee’s role. Moreover, the requirements are mapped to problems as well as opportunities. Finally, we present examples of elaborations of the addressed requirements based on software design considerations. In our work we applied a design science approach and the artifact presented in this paper is a list of generic requirement. The presented requirements and the systems development process used, provide guidelines for systems analysts and developers in future systems development projects aiming at constructing new software for crisis management training