The purpose of this study was to investigate project managers´ perceptions of the importance of motivation within real estate projects. The study also aimed to examine how project managers promote and maintain motivation amongst project members. Real estate projects referred to projects for renovation, conversion, or new construction of properties. A qualitative research method was employed for data collection through semi-structured interviews. Nine project managers working in the Swedish real estate industry were interviewed. Subsequently, a thematic analysis of the collected data was conducted. The thematic analysis resulted in three themes formulated as Success factor versus Upward Push, The art of motivating and Motivation per circumstance. The results indicate that project managers perceive motivation as a positive driving force in real estate projects. It is considered important for both project managers and project members to be motivated. Furthermore, the results show that the perception of the significance of motivation within real estate projects is divided. Some project managers perceive motivation as critical for the success of a project, while others believe that real estate projects are often influenced by external circumstances that are more decisive for the outcome of the project. Motivation is therefore considered in those cases rather to add an extra edge to the projects. To promote and maintain motivation amongst project members, project managers believe it is important to build personal relationships, work with feedback and encourage the expression of opinions.

Purpose – Remote work and agile project management have become prominent features of the modern workplace, valued for their adaptability and responsiveness. The integration of remote work and the agile approach is seen as a relatively underexplored area, compared to remote work in connection to traditional project management approaches. This thesis aims to explore how the shift towards remote work impacts the application of agile principles in agile teams. Additionally, the paper seeks to contribute valuable insights to academia and industry, enhancing understanding of the relationship between remote work and agile principles for practical applications and scholarly discourse.  Design/methodology/approach – The study is constructed as a qualitative study. A survey with open-ended questions is used as part of the inductive reasoning approach to achieve the objectives of this study. It employs an analytical approach based on a thematic network for its analysis.  Findings – With insights from 10 primarily project manager respondents, the study revealed diverse experiences, including both challenges and benefits within the context of this subject area. Challenges in maintaining agile principles in a distributed work setting are seen to include communication barriers, lack of informal interactions and potential loss of team spirit. This while adaptation and effective communication through incorporating online tools were identified as key strategies for improving team performance.    Research limitations – The study's limitations, including a short timeframe, small sample size, restricted data collection and analysis. Methodological constraints, such as using a survey, limited deeper exploration of respondents' perspectives. Additionally, the qualitative approach chosen didn't allow quantification of the issue's magnitude.   Practical and Societal implications – This thesis offers practical implications aimed at individuals working with agile practices in remote settings, primarily project managers. Focusing on the importance of effective communication and support, it suggests solutions and strategies such as providing training opportunities and promoting a sense of community to enhance team performance and well-being. Societal implications underscore the need for maintaining social connections in the workplace to support work-life balance and mental health, to also benefit the economic aspects. By implementing these implications, agile project managers can address challenges and opportunities in remote agile work, aiming to improve team performance and contribute to societal well-being.

Thesis in project management, D-level by Chris Baldebo & Anders Persson spring semester2011. Tutor: Lennart Ljung. “Project Manager's Psychosocial Work Environment in thePublic Sector – A Qualitative Study in the Värmland County Council”. The purpose of this study is to examine how project managers in the public sector perceivetheir psychosocial work environment in a public organization. Therefore we have formulateda hypothesis based on the assumption that there exist differences in how project managersperceive their psychosocial work environment, depending on whether they work in public orprivate sector.Based on the objective, one research question has been formulated: How do projectmanagers active in the Pegasus program experience their psychosocial work environment? Tobe able to say something characteristic about the project managers psychosocial workenvironment our approach has been to interview five project managers. Further in ouroperationalization and analysis we have used Karasek/Johnsons demand/control/supportmodel with amplifications in form of project specific factors taken from theory about projectmanagement.From the analysis of the empirical data, we conclude that the project managers who areactive in the Pegasus program in the Värmland county council experience their psychosocialwork environment in several ways. In this study that means that several of the respondentsexperience high levels of stress in the psychosocial work environment while the degree ofself-monitoring and social support to the project manager’s work varies between therespondents. We can also see that several of the project managers feel that their psychosocialwork environment is stimulating while others experience it mainly as stressing. Some of theproject managers could therefore more than others, eventually suffer from psychosomaticdisorders as long as their work demands mostly not are compensated by a higher degree ofself-monitoring. / Examensarbete i projektledning, D-uppsats av Chris Baldebo & Anders Persson vårterminen2011. Handledare: Lennart Ljung. ”Projektledares psykosociala arbetsmiljö inom offentligverksamhet – En kvalitativ studie i Värmlands landsting”. Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka hur projektledare verksamma inom offentligverksamhet upplever sin psykosociala arbetsmiljö. Utifrån detta har vi formulerat en hypotessom bygger på antagandet att det finns skillnader i hur projektledare upplever sinpsykosociala arbetsmiljö beroende på om de arbetar inom offentlig eller privat sektor.Utifrån syftet har en preciserad frågeställning formulerats: Hur upplever projektledareverksamma inom Pegasusprogrammet i Värmlands landsting sin psykosociala arbetsmiljö?För att kunna säga något karakteristiskt om detta har vår ansats varit att intervjua femprojektledare. Vidare i vår operationalisering och analys har vi utgått från Karasek/Johnsonskrav/kontroll/stödmodell samt förstärkt denna med projektspecifika faktorer som hämtats frånteori om projektledning.Genom analysen av våra empiriska data drar vi slutsatsen att projektledare som ärverksamma inom Pegasusprogrammet upplever sin psykosociala arbetsmiljö på flera olikasätt. Detta innebär i denna studie att flera av respondenterna upplever en hög grad avarbetskrav i den psykosociala arbetsmiljön. Samtidigt varierar graden av egenkontroll ochsocialt stöd i arbetet mellan respondenterna. Vi kan också se att flera av projektledarnaupplever att deras psykosociala arbetsmiljö är stressande medan andra ser den främst somstimulerande. Utifrån de olika upplevelserna riskerar därmed vissa av projektledarna i högreutsträckning än andra, att på sikt drabbas av psykosomatiska besvär så länge deras arbetskravinte motsvaras av en högre grad av egenkontroll.Nyckelord:

Studien utgår från att interna förändringsprojekt inte alltid lyckas men de behövs för att anpassa och modernisera organisationen. Det är ett sätt att hantera den snabba förändringstakten i samhället och konkurrensen med andra. Antalet projekt ökar liksom kraven på resultat och på vad projektledaren ska kunna. Ett ökat fokus på människorna och på förändringsmotstånd är framgångsfaktorer i uppgiften att ändra på medarbetarnas beteende. Grunden för att leda projekt, skriver Jansson och Ljung (2009) är att hårda och mjuka perspektiv måste mötas. Studien handlar om hur projektbeställaren ser på att ge projektledare med pedagogiska kompetenser implementeringsansvar eller projektledaruppdrag i interna förändringsprojekt eftersom det finns behov av lärande vid förändringar. Teorin är kopplad till vår undersökning om huruvida organisationer kan utnyttja en dold resurs – pedagogiska projektledare – för att skapa bättre interna förändringsprojekt, att utföra de uppgifter som sammantaget kräver pedagogisk kompetens. Studien har utgått från en kvalitativ metod i form av kvalitativa intervjuer och tolkande analyser för att ge ett tillräckligt djup i svaren. För att avgränsa och samtidigt få ett tillräckligt underlag för analysen valdes sex projektbeställare ur offentlig sektor. Respondenterna hade stor frihet att utforma svaren i de semistrukturerade intervjuerna. Intervjumaterialet analyserades utifrån ett hermeneutiskt forskningssätt där vi jämförde delar av intervjuerna med intervjuerna i sin helhet för att förstå sammanhangen. Vi utgick från frågeområden om interna förändringsprojekt, projektledning och pedagogisk kompetens. Studien visar att projektbeställarna ser ett tydligt behov av projektledare med pedagogisk kompetens till förändring som kräver ett förändrat beteende och därmed arbete med människor. Fördjupad pedagogisk kompetens, d.v.s. utöver en allmän pedagogisk kunskap, liknar i studiens mening förändringsledning vilket är ett mer vedertaget begrepp. Det som skiljer i respondenternas svar är hur implementeringen hanteras och vem som ansvarar för den. Det övervägande svaret är att implementeringen ligger utanför projektet och inte hanteras av projektledaren utan av projektmottagaren som vanligtvis är projektbeställaren eller en linjechef i mottagarorganisationen. Att en pedagogisk kompetens behövs för att genomföra en lyckad implementering har uttryckts av respondenterna och studien föreslår att implementeringen värdesätts som ett eget projekt lett av en projektledare med pedagogiska kompetenser alternativt att implementeringen ingår som en av faserna i projektet när projektledaren har kunskaper om projektets innehåll och har den pedagogiska kompetensen att implementera det. / This study understands that internal change projects do not always succeed but they are needed to adapt and modernize the organization. They are a way to handle the fast pace of change in society and compete with others. The number of projects is increasing as well as requirements for results and project managers´ skills. An increased focus regarding to human and resistance change are key success factors in the task of changing employees' behaviour. Fundamentally for managing projects, according to Jansson and Ljung (2009) is that hard and soft perspectives must be used together. The study is about how project procurers look at providing pedagogical project managers an implementation responsibility or project management assignments in internal change projects, as there is need for learning to change. The theory is linked to our inquiry about whether organizations can exploit a hidden resource – the pedagogical project manager - to create better internal change projects, replace both project manager and change leader and perform the tasks requiring pedagogical skills. The study is based on a qualitative approach in the form of qualitative interviews and interpretive analyses to provide sufficient depth in the answers. To delineate and gain a sufficient basis for the analysis, six project procurers were selected from the public sector. The respondents were free to design the answers in the semi-structured interviews. The interview data were analysed on the basis of hermeneutic research in which we compared parts of the interviews to their entirety in order to understand the context, arising out of question areas of internal change projects, project management and pedagogical skills. The study indicates that projects procurers see a clear need of project managers with pedagogical skills to changes that require a change in behaviour and thus a human perspective. In the study, enhanced pedagogical skills are similar to change management, which is a more established concept. The differences in the respondents' answers are how the implementation is handled and who is responsible. The overwhelming answer is that the implementation is located outside the project and is not handled by the project manager but by the project beneficiary who is usually the project procurer or a line manager in the recipient organization. The respondents expressed, that pedagogical skills are necessary to achieve a successful implementation. The study suggests that implementation is valued as a separate project, led by a project manager with pedagogical competencies or that implementation is included as one of the phases in the project, when the project manager has knowledge of the content and has the pedagogical skills to implement it.