Inom ämnet informatik definieras verksamhet i form av processer föratt kravställa IT som möjliggörare i organisationer. Det behövskompetens och förmåga att leda ett processarbete utifrån grundläggandeprinciper i processorientering. I forskning utvecklas metodermed normativ kunskap som vägledning för yrkesverksamma att arbetamed processorientering i praktiken (PoP). Aktuell kursdesign tarutgångspunkt i samproduktion av kunskap mellan utbildning, forskningoch näringsliv för att sam-skapa PoP-metoder. Organisationerbeställer specificerade PoP-uppdrag av studenterna som handlar omatt kartlägga, förbättra och utveckla nya arbetssätt och digitalalösningar. Yrkesverksamma deltar som medbedömare av studenternasförmåga att leda en processkartläggning och lärandet i den praktiskametod-tillämpningen utmanas och diskuteras på djupet med yrkesverksammai en efterföljande workshop. Syftet med det här bidraget äratt reflektera över en ny kursdesign som tar höjd för en dubblering avstudenter och online undervisning utan att tappa ett studentaktivtlärande och möjligheter till samproduktion av metoder mellanutbildning, forskning och yrkesliv. Lärdomar och rekommendationeravseende kursdesign presenteras.

Purpose – Despite many efforts within organizations toward business process orientation (BPO), research on real-world experiences remains in its infancy. The purpose of this paper is to redress the existing knowledge gap by analyzing a Swedish public housing company that has made notable effects regarding BPO and to explore lessons learned from the BPO journey (from 1998 to 2013).

Design/methodology/approach – The point of departure is principles in the BPO foundation, principles of successful BPM and effects in empirically based literature. The reconstruction of the narrative case study describes milestones and critical junctions, as well as effects based on quantitative and qualitative data.

Findings – Effects in BPO are demonstrated in terms of higher customer satisfaction, increased innovative ability, improved operational performance, higher employee satisfaction and, as a result of these, increased profitability. Theoretical constructs with implications for the theory building on BPO are suggested in a three-layer management framework – with capabilities and abilities emerging from the case study used as an illustrative example.

Practical implications – Lessons are learned regarding critical practices related to advancement in BPO. A strategy-building process based on eight design propositions is suggested to define the pre-conditions for BPO in an organization.

Originality/value – This is the first longitudinal case study to provide a comprehensive view and detailed insights of a BPO journey and top management performance toward a business process-oriented organization. Practitioners and BPM community get valuable insights into how the temporality and the context shape the BPO maturity process in terms of new organizational structure and roles during the journey.

Inom ämnet informatik definieras verksamhet i form av processer för att kravställa IT som möjliggörare i organisationer. Det behövs kompetens och förmåga att leda ett processarbete utifrån grundläggande principer i processorientering. I forskning utvecklas metoder med normativ kunskap som vägledning för yrkesverksamma att arbeta med processorientering i praktiken (PoP). Aktuell kursdesign tar utgångspunkt i samproduktion av kunskap mellan utbildning, forskning och näringsliv för att sam-skapa PoP metoder, med avstamp i de situationer som yrkesverksamma upplever och i de teoretiska och metodmässiga förklaringsgrunder som forskare och kursdeltagare tillämpar. Aktuell forskning och behov i näringslivet styr innehåll i läraktiviteter och examination. Organisationer beställer specificerade uppdrag av studenterna som handlar om att kartlägga, förbättra och utveckla nya arbetssätt och digitala lösningar. Välgrundade metoder för verksamhetsutveckling i form av PoPmetoder som används i studenternas olika uppdrag. Yrkesverksamma deltar som medbedömare av studenternas förmåga att leda en processkartläggning. Lärandet från den praktiska tillämpningen utmanas och diskuteras på djupet med ett 20-tal yrkesverksamma i en efterföljande workshop. Resultatet av kartläggningen tas emot och kan användas i respektive organisation och den metodanalys som studenterna gör används i vidareutveckling av PoP metoder och i forskning.

Requirements Engineering (RE) has established itself as a software engineering discipline over the past decades. While researchers have been investigating the RE discipline with a plethora of empirical studies, attempts to systematically derive an empirical theory in context of the RE discipline have just recently been started. However, such a theory is needed if we are to define and motivate guidance in performing high quality RE research and practice. We aim at providing an empirical and externally valid foundation for a theory of RE practice, which helps software engineers establish effective and efficient RE processes in a problem-driven manner. We designed a survey instrument and an engineer-focused theory that was first piloted in Germany and, after making substantial modifications, has now been replicated in 10 countries worldwide. We have a theory in the form of a set of propositions inferred from our experiences and available studies, as well as the results from our pilot study in Germany. We evaluate the propositions with bootstrapped confidence intervals and derive potential explanations for the propositions. In this article, we report on the design of the family of surveys, its underlying theory, and the full results obtained from the replication studies conducted in 10 countries with participants from 228 organisations. Our results represent a substantial step forward towards developing an empirical theory of RE practice. The results reveal, for example, that there are no strong differences between organisations in different countries and regions, that interviews, facilitated meetings and prototyping are the most used elicitation techniques, that requirements are often documented textually, that traces between requirements and code or design documents are common, that requirements specifications themselves are rarely changed and that requirements engineering (process) improvement endeavours are mostly internally driven. Our study establishes a theory that can be used as starting point for many further studies for more detailed investigations. Practitioners can use the results as theory-supported guidance on selecting suitable RE methods and techniques.

Although research exists on Business Process Management (BPM) maturity models, few studies report on their practical use. This paper explores the situational needs and practitioner's views on assessing BPM maturity. Data triangulation uncovered different applications in Swedish industry and public sector organizations through three phases: 1) data collection in a practitioner-driven BPM maturity model design, 2) validation of the design in a workshop and follow-up interviews, and 3) testing the BPM maturity model by practitioners. The basic assumption is that a generic BPM maturity model will most likely not fit all organizations. Therefore, a framework is presented with elements (e.g. scope and measures) for a BPM maturity model to be customized to an organization’s needs, supplemented by a practical ‘tailoring template’. The framework and template contribute to the BPM discipline with a Swedish example, and allows twelve design propositions with recommendations to simplify the application of BPM maturity models and enhance their fit.

Requirements Engineering (RE) has received much attention in research andpractice due to its importance to software project success. Its interdisciplinary nature, thedependency to the customer, and its inherent uncertainty still render the discipline diffi-cult to investigate. This results in a lack of empirical data. These are necessary, however, todemonstrate which practically relevant RE problems exist and to what extent they matter.Motivated by this situation, we initiated the Naming the Pain in Requirements Engineer-ing (NaPiRE) initiative which constitutes a globally distributed, bi-yearly replicated family of surveys on the status quo and problems in practical RE. In this article, we report on thequalitative analysis of data obtained from 228 companies working in 10 countries in variousdomains and we reveal which contemporary problems practitioners encounter. To this end,we analyse 21 problems derived from the literature with respect to their relevance and crit-icality in dependency to their context, and we complement this picture with a cause-effectanalysis showing the causes and effects surrounding the most critical problems. Our resultsgive us a better understanding of which problems exist and how they manifest themselvesin practical environments. Thus, we provide a first step to ground contributions to RE onempirical observations which, until now, were dominated by conventional wisdom only.

E-service development has grown to become a daily practice in most public organizations as a means for realizing digital agendas and e-government initiatives on different levels (local, regional, national and transnational governmental levels). Public e-service development is often an inter-organizational (IO) effort with multiple actors and organizations involved in the multi-faceted dimensions of design, development and delivery decisions. Still, there is a lack of research focusing on IO public e-service development practices in particular. In order to address this lack we elaborate on reported challenges and their implications for IO public e-service development in practice. By returning to two empirical cases of IO public e-service development, the IO dimension is evolved. Our purpose is to highlight challenges in IO public e-service development with implications for research and practice. Findings are presented as eight emerging lessons learned from an inside-out perspective related to phases in IO public e-service development processes.

Municipal development of public e-services in Sweden has been criticized by researchers for being steered by quantitative measures, rather than by the actual demands and needs of these services. The results are public e-services that few citizens use. Several scholars have urged municipalities to adopt a stakeholder approach to the development of e-services in order to better understand the actors involved in public e-service development, implementation, and use. The need for a deeper understanding of stakeholders and their various needs are recognized also by practitioners. There are several analytical tools for stakeholder analysis presented by researchers, but these have not yet been widely adopted by practitioners. We present preliminary results from a workshop, with practitioners engaged in public e-service development, designed to investigate this possible research-practice gap. By asking practitioners to react on scholarly work designed for their practice, we investigate their perceptions on a research-based text and their view on its possible utility in their everyday work. The preliminary results show that there are indeed challenges concerning communicating analytical tools, authored by and for researchers, to practitioners. Some tips on how to adjust scholarly text to better fit practitioners needs are extracted and presented, and the paper is concluded with suggestions on how to further explore this knowledge domain. 

This paper elaborates on the potential to design and conduct process-oriented user tests on public e-Services. The purpose is to use key constructs of business process orientation (BPO) to develop a basis for design and communicating the value of user tests in a public e-Service context. Our hypotheses are that user tests can provide valuable results for all actors involved in e-Service development, not only in terms of how to conduct user tests per se, but also to provide incentives for a customer driven focus and highlighting the value derived from user tests. In the municipality case, actors and stakeholders are involved municipalities in an inter-organisational collaboration on e-Service development, i.e. different municipalities, locally and regionally, as well as the supplier.  Citizens partaking in a university course conduct the user tests with the eye tracking technology. In total 71 users performed in test sessions on 11 different e-Services in a standard platform provided by one supplier. In this paper, we elaborate on a BPO test design based on basic constructs in the approach compared with findings from reconstructing the test process design used with an implicit approach 2012 and an explicit BPO approach in 2013. Contributions include a generic test-process design for data collection, analysis and delivery to stakeholders in an overall e-Service development. Furthermore, findings from our test sessions and test process design will inspire and guide other universities to collaborate with practitioners. Beside the strength with a real case for the students, user test sessions in collaboration can be an eye-opener to not only for municipalities but also suppliers. Thus, the potential for impacts from test results to be applied in the further development of e-Services has thereby increased.