Projects and project-based activities account for over 30% of the global GPD and act as significant vehicles in the transition towards a more sustainable future. Sustainability strategies are typically enacted and implemented through projects in project-based organisations and firms. Incorporating sustainability principles into the project, product, and service management processes with successful project decision making is a challenging task and requires new personnel competencies and skills. Project sustainability management education requires the embedding of sustainability principles into project management education in a purposeful, integrative, innovative, and seamless manner. One way to facilitate this process is educational games. Active and experiential teaching methods will enable learning and practising complex project management activities in a simulative environment and are challenging at the same time. To extend knowledge of designing and using educational games for project sustainability management education, we explore the development and use of a novel educational game solution called the Project Business Game. It provides students and teachers with a computer game environment and game-based learning solution in which project planning, stakeholder management, cost management, decision making, and risk management skills can be enhanced by means of experiential, situational, and problem-based learning. The use of the game was explored in the context of educating European students of ‘Junior Expert in Circular Economy’ on a blended learning course in spring 2021. Action design research was applied as a research method. The results describe the requirements and goals for the instruction and the game design process based on these needs and experiences of the implementation. The findings indicate the strong suitability of using game-based learning methods to teach project sustainability management and create positive student experiences of achieving learning goals and improving engagement.

The purpose of this study is to provide understanding of project governance practices in agile projects. A systematic review of the previous agile literature is conducted to identify and categorize agile project governance practices, which are synthesized in a six-dimensional framework. The study contributes to the literature by contrasting traditional and agile project governance practices and by identifying new practices emerging in agile projects, while also noting remaining gaps in knowledge. The implications of this study enable managers to identify and apply feasible governance practices that can support better agile project performance.

Agile development methods are widely used among business enterprises. Since the introduction of the Agile Manifesto in 2001, several agile methods have been implemented, first in single-team set-ups and later in larger multi-team set-ups for complex Information Technology (IT) system development. However, the adoption of agile methods has been slow in the public sector. This is also reflected in the academic literature, as there are only a few studies discussing agile adoption in public organizations. This paper contributes to research on the use of agile practices specifically in the context of public organizations, and sheds light on the challenges a public organization may face while adopting these practices. The aim of this paper is to identify and categorize the challenges that may hinder efficient adoption and use of agile methods in public IT projects that include private software vendors. This research is based on a case study of a large governmental office. As a result, this paper presents several categories of identified challenges, the root causes of these challenges, and a discussion of the characteristics of these challenges for the public sector.

Purpose: Agile methodologies are widely used to manage the technical complexity of software development, and project governance can provide feasible means of organizational support for complex project success. The purpose of this paper is to: analyze the project governance practices of public sector organizations, illustrate what kind of impact these practices have on agile software projects and describe the tensions of agile project governance. Design/methodology/approach: The research is based on qualitative research strategy and applies elaborative logic with analyses of three case projects in the Finnish public sector. Findings: The findings of the research describe how project governance practices can be categorized into six dimensions: business case, contracting, controlling, steering, decision-making and capability building. The results illustrate how these practices either support or detract the performance of agile projects. The results also show that there are two interfaces to agile project that create most tensions to governance – the public sector and technology. Originality/value: The study contributes to both project management and information and communication technology theories by combining technical aspects of agile methodologies with micro-level project governance practices. The study also adds original value to academics by introducing the new concept of “agile project governance.” The results of this study will allow public sector project organizations to design appropriate governance mechanisms for agile projects, and to identify the challenges and tensions that need to be considered and managed in the process.