Specializing a Design Science Research Methodology for the Domains of is/IT Management and IT Project Management

This research-in-progress paper presents a research agenda to specialize an initial version of a design science research (DSR) methodology for social systems further for the areas of IS/IT management (ITM) and IT project management (ITPM). The methodology was synthesized based on the current state-of-the-art of DSR in the management discipline and is aimed at designing, instantiating, and evaluating management artefacts. The research agenda to specialize the currently very abstract methodology is divided three phases: 1) substantiating the elements of the methodology further for management artefacts by filling identified research gaps, 2) adapting the abstract methodology to the two domains of ITM and ITPM by reconstructing cases of the introduction of ITM/ITPM artefacts of practice, and 3) application of the substantiated and adapted methodologies to conduct actual DSR and design ITM and ITPM artefacts to solve classes of real-world ITM or ITPM problems. In the end, IS researchers can use the specialized methodology to conduct ITM and ITPM DSR while taking the special nature of organizations and management artefacts into account. Furthermore, the phases of the research agenda can serve as a foundation for further research on how to reduce the level of abstraction of artefacts in a systematic way.ion of artefacts in a systematic way.