The agile promises of simplicity, responsiveness to change and enhanced operational efficiency from a customer perspective seem to have attracted attention from R&D units governed by bureaucratic traditions that were originally designed for predictability and control. When implemented, agile methods challenge much of the old logic, manifesting in habits, routines, processes and practices. Yet, several institutional pressures seem to be pulling the organization back towards its old ways. We introduce the concept organizational gravity to describe the combined institutional pressures that affected the possibility to reap the benefits from the transformation, by pulling the organization back towards their traditional workways. Although the setting for this research was the benefits of agile methods during agile transformations, we believe that the results may inform also other transformations, such as digitalization. All in all, we identify 10 forces pulling backwards and categorize these into three forms of organizational gravity.

This research critically examines the reasons for adopting agile methods in a multidisciplinary R&D unit developing complex, mechatronic products. By studying how stakeholders undertake and experience the agile transformation, the study challenges the assumption that agile methods inherently address the problems of modern product development. Using qualitative methods, including in-depth interviews and roundtable discussions over a 2-year period, this paper explores the reasons for and results from adopting agile methods in one case organization. The findings highlight a mismatch between expected benefits of agile methods and the practical implementation of such work methods, highlighting the complexity of agile transformations. The study concludes that the impact of agile methods is inseparable from the quality of their implementation and contextual adaptation both to the specifics of the complex, mechatronic products being developed and to the need for coordination between disciplines in the R&D unit.

This research explores the challenges of adopting agile methods in multifunctional productdevelopment, studying the R&D division in a large international company. Using a qualitative method,we seek to understand how stakeholders experience and undertake this ongoing change. Over a 14-month period, in-depth interviews and meetings with managers from various units were conducted.

Our findings highlight the multifaceted challenges encountered in the transition towards agilemethodologies. Key barriers include organizational antagonism, lack of role models, establishingcross-organizational coordination, receiver capacity, and classic change management problems. Ourstudy underscores the need for nuanced managerial strategies to navigate these obstacles effectively.From formalizing new routines to acknowledging external constraints, managers must anticipate andaddress various challenges to ensure successful agile transformations.

The study adds to the current understanding of agile methodologies as new form of organizing R&D ina multifunctional product development setting. We offer insights into the stepwise adoption of agilepractices in multifunctional product development, making three key contributions: (1) identifyingobstacles in adopting agile methods, (2) suggesting areas for future research, and (3) providingpractical advice for managers overseeing multifunctional R&D projects.

Collaboration is a long and strong academic tradition. Over the years we have seen many investments in increasing collaborations, nationally and internationally, such as Erasmus +, EIT etc. Many of these attempts fall short, there are some collaborations, some development of platforms/infrastructure, but as soon as funding ends, collaboration ends. This paper makes a strong argument for a structured approach to inter-organizational university collaborations where the opportunities and challenges of different alternatives are evaluated. The paper proposes that solutions for national inter-organizational university collaborations can be designed by combining the choice of technical educational platforms with an idea for how to organize the collaborative processes.  

We argue that it is possible to stake out the overall approach for inter-organizational university collaborations. Learning from previous initiatives, there are three main alternatives to choose from; (1) Focus on creating organizational collaborations; (2) Focus on creating and sharing content; and (3) Focus on creating common delivery of courses. It is noteworthy to mention that these are not mutually exclusive alternatives but can and should be combined.  

Collaboration is a long and strong academic tradition. Over the years we have seen many investments in increasing collaborations, nationally and internationally, such as Erasmus +, EIT etc. Many of these attempts fall short, there are some collaborations, some development of platforms/infrastructure, but as soon as funding ends, collaboration ends. This paper makes a strong argument for a structured approach to inter-organizational university collaborations where the opportunities and challenges of different alternatives are evaluated. The paper proposes that solutions for national inter-organizational university collaborations can be designed by combining the choice of technical educational platforms with an idea for how to organize the collaborative processes.  

We argue that it is possible to stake out the overall approach for inter-organizational university collaborations. Learning from previous initiatives, there are three main alternatives to choose from; (1) Focus on creating organizational collaborations; (2) Focus on creating and sharing content; and (3) Focus on creating common delivery of courses. It is noteworthy to mention that these are not mutually exclusive alternatives but can and should be combined.

The nature of designing and developing new products and services inherently means having todeal with the unknown. This has garnered research attention from many perspectives over the years.Today we know both how to categorize ambiguity and reasons for sustaining or mitigating it. Yet,what practitioners actually do when facing ambiguity is not well understood. For this reason, weintroduce the concept of negotiating ambiguity, meaning to engage in conversation, to makeinterpretations or create meaning, when facing ambiguity. The purpose is to explore how design andnew product development work is made to progress when facing ambiguity. We study this in twocases: one of service design work and one of product design and development work. Usingobservations and semi-structured interviews, three contributions are derived from the material. First,we show that negotiating ambiguity does not stand apart from the ongoing design and developmentwork. Secondly, we portray 14 activities for negotiating ambiguity. Thirdly, the activities arecategorized into four strategies for negotiating ambiguity, namely: constructing points of reference,mediating between perspectives, anchoring in expertise, and visualizing the future. By leveraginginsights from the paper, managers can strengthen how ambiguity is negotiated in theirorganizations, for instance by recognizing the skill of negotiating ambiguity when recruiting andtraining employees.

This paper challenges the view that ambiguity is undesirable. Doing so enables us to break free from a long tradition of approaching ambiguity as a hindrance to be avoided or reduced. In this paper, an alternative view is presented that shows that the very essence of creativity and innovation in design and new product development (NPD) work revolves around ambiguity. A practice perspective is adopted to empirically and qualitatively study the ongoing design and NPD work in observations and interviews. In contrast to the design and NPD literature’s emphasis on reducing ambiguity as a fundamental prerequisite for finalizing projects, the present article demonstrates that the emergence of ambiguity is a prerequisite for undertaking design and NPD work: ambiguity creates room for maneuver in-between the multiple or vague interpretations. The contribution thus shows how ambiguity continuously opens up a space for action wherein new interpretations may emerge with regards to the design outcome, its intended market and the process for its creation.

The agile paradigm is winning ground, and many large-scale industrial companies are now followingthe trend to transition into agile ways of organizing their (development) work. In doing so, theorganization not only needs to manage the change itself, but also the new way of working and theorganizational consequences from the change. Research in the field has kept pace, there are bothstudied success stories and identified challenges with undergoing agile transformations. However,the long-term organizational consequences of agile transformations and what makes thetransformation sustainable and lasting over time are shrouded in mystery: is it a good or bad dream?

Design is a core technical and creative activity for innovation. Design consultancy companies make a business out of taking on ill structured development work. Uncertainty is an integral part of this kind of fuzzy front end (FFE) development; the need for information and knowledge is to a large extent unknown and possible difficulties on the way is yet to be encountered.The objective of this paper is to describe how commissioned FFE work may be managed in order to mitigate uncertainty. The basis for the article is a comparative case study at two design consultancy firms. One of the companies have structured and standardized their work process in order to reduce uncertainty about what to do in a commission. Simultaneously, the process functions as a guarantee that they will reach an unknown but acceptable output.The other company initiates their projects by first of all defining product characteristics that are crucial for business success. This product definition then functions as a beacon during the consecutive development; it reduces uncertainty of what output to reach whilst letting the team decide on the unique route for each commission.