Leading by Metaphors –A Case Study of a Mega IT Project in a Danish Bank

Contrary to the existing literature and studies of large-scale IT projects, empirical data from a mega IT project in mid-sized Danish Bank, Jyske Bank, demonstrates a successful implementation of a highly complex IT platform transition. Linguistic representations and especially extensive use of metaphors by executive management to form and shape the megaproject appeared to have significant impact on guidance of individual and collective action, and thereby presumably one of the important factors for the successful implementation. To learn from this case study, we investigate the metaphorical use in the megaproject and discuss how leading by metaphors are enacted. Our findings are that (1) metaphorical storytelling can act as backbone for communication, (2) metaphors can set direction for technical capabilities, and finally (3) metaphors can be used to emphasize emotional intelligence

Innovative Project Idea Maturation: An Important Part of Governance

Part 1: GovernanceInternational audienceProject Governance includes the elicitation of ideas for projects, choosing the best ideas, initiating projects, assigning resources, and nurturing the projects to success. In the third largest bank in Denmark – Jyske Bank – IT project managers often became uncertain when they were assigned new projects; their descriptions were either to vague or broad or sometimes even both. There was a need for better project scoping and improved idea descriptions. In this paper we describe how we committed ourselves to solve this problem. Based on a literature study on innovation and using an existing creative space (room) called the "land of opportunity", we used a design science approach to formulate a new idea maturation concept. Here two years later, we have developed and evaluated our concept on several project ideas. The uncertain project managers are now very enthusiastic; they really feel that they have a much clearer scope and idea description as well as an early prototype of the idea. After four design iterations, the concept stabilized. In this paper we present the idea maturation concept and the organizational design science research process we have used