Millions of people around the world consider project management as their major task in their profession, yet the demand for project managers is still increasing. To face this demand many organizations use consultants as project managers for their projects. However, the literature in project management tend to ignore potential differences between internal project managers and consultants as project managers. This thesis is written on commission for LKAB which is a Swedish mining company who conduct around 60-80 projects yearly. Projects at LKAB is managed by internal professional project managers, internal line-managers and consultants as project managers. Despite having three different categories of project managers LKAB has little knowledge about potential differences in how they manage projects. Thus, the purpose of this thesis is to make a case study on project managers at LKAB in search to answer our research question: How do internal project managers, line-workers and consultants manage projects differently? To answer our research question we developed a theoretical frame where we present research which we suggest have given an answer towards the previously discussed question if project leadership has a direct impact on project success or not. Research has found that project leadership has a direct impact on project performance which we consider crucial since it impact the relevance of our study. In our theoretical frame we also present research in outsourcing, project planning and organizing, education, perspectives in project management and theories of project management competencies and skills. There are two perspectives in project management, task perspective which focus on achieving the project objectives and the organizational perspective where they emphasize the relationship between the temporary organization and the permanent organization where main focus is to create value for the receiving organization. To gather data we conducted nine semi-structured interviews in Kiruna with three line- mangers, three internal professional project managers and three consultants which has been hired as project managers by LKAB. We found support to a previous study which showed that project managers have different perspectives towards project management. Furthermore, we found a connection between the project managers perspective and how they prioritized between project goal or effect goal. Project managers with an organizational perspective consider the effect goal to be more important than the project goal and vice versa. We also found that line-managers as project managers do not plan their projects, or manage risk in the same way as professional internal project managers or consultants.

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The purpose of this thesis was to explore what challenges are identified in project portfolio management (PPM) in an internal multi-project environment. The aim of this study was to find the underlying reason for the occurrence of challenges in terms of how these challenges occur, and why do they occur. To realize the purpose and the aim of the study, the research was conducted at ABB Components, a business unit of ABB Group. Further, based on identified challenges provide a set of guidelines and recommendations for managing and countering the challenges. To understand the research problem a literature review was employed and a case study was conducted at ABB Components. The purpose of the literature review was to gain a theoretical background related to the research topic, identify challenges or problems, and potential solutions, with the purpose of establishing a connection to the challenges identified in the case study. The empirical work consisted of the case study conducted at ABB Components and was constituted by interviews person. The analysis of the results was validated with a workshop held with interviewees, with discussions regarding the findings. Guidelines and recommendations for managing challenges related to project portfolio management were designed from the results of empirical and theoretical work. The 11 main challenges related to project portfolio management were identified throughout three defined project phases, initiation of a project, execution of a project and project closure, and was appearing either in one phase or across phases. The challenges in this research were correlated to four main causes; limited resources (budget & time), limited resources (personnel), vague directives, and project maturity. The identified challenges can be encountered and managed by utilizing existing models for project management, improved information handling, expanding the notion of criteria for project success, performing a resource capacity analysis, and planning for the project closure. The theoretical and practical work have contributed to a collective analysis of what types of challenges are evident in phases throughout a single project, and what outcomes these challenges can have on a project portfolio in an internal multi-project environment and . It has to some extent indicated differences among challenges and causes evident in multi-project settings, for projects that are classified as internal development or product development, implicating differences throughout the project phase. Furthermore the challenges have pivoted around the three main themes centered indicating that there are challenges related to each phase of the project life, as well as challenges which are apparent across the project phases.