Research report presented to the SBL, Unisa, Midrand. / This report proposes to make a contribution in the area of governance by critically analyzing the governance structure of SNV (The Netherlands Development Organization) in implementing projects. This study is motivated by the scarcity of published documentation on corporate and project governance practices specific to the African and particularly Kenyan context which organisations interested in pursuing good governance and managerial practices can use as a reference point.

Research report presented to the SBL, Unisa, Midrand. / This report proposes to make a contribution in the area of governance by critically analyzing the governance structure of SNV (The Netherlands Development Organization) in implementing projects. This study is motivated by the scarcity of published documentation on corporate and project governance practices specific to the African and particularly Kenyan context which organisations interested in pursuing good governance and managerial practices can use as a reference point.

<p>In this changing world, companies have had to learn how to formulate and implement their strategies through projects and organizational structures in order to successfully face threats and opportunities. However, the management of multiple projects is not easy and due to this complexity, a new type of organization has emerged, called Multiproject organization. Depending to its characteristics, this new organization can be classified in project oriented (POO) or project based (PBO) (Arvidsson, 2009).</p><p>Before to execute a project, the organization needs to evaluate its resources and decide if should buy the project through contractors or make it with its own resources (Müller and Turner, 2005). A Project Based Organization (PBO) which manages multiple projects at the same time through contractors requires to keep a good monitoring and controlling project performance, and to create the best project governance structure.</p><p>About these subjects, there have been journals and books published since an academic perspective; but, not all of them have described these topics in a real organization. The aim of this research is to learn how these concepts are applied in a real project based organization, as well as the problems that can be faced and how they have solved them.</p><p>The purpose of this thesis is to show how a PBO deals with the governance of its contracts, considering how the PBO estimates the cost of the project, how it deals controlling the contractors and their projects, as well as how it minimizes the transaction‟s (i.e. the project‟s) economic and administrative costs. Based in the purpose of the study, the research question is: “How do project minimize transactions costs in supplier engagements in delivery projects in the Swedish construction industry? the construction of a railway in the north of Sweden and due to it has 130 major contracts, can be considered as a multi-project organization. The Unit of Analysis used is the transaction cost in supplier involvement in project. A single case study was chosen to present and analyze the information from the organization. It was analyzed qualitative data collected through semi-structured interviews which were applied inside and outside the company, in order to make a triangulation of the data collected.</p><p>The findings explained that the railway company analyzed, achieved to minimize its based organizations (PBOs)” In order to answer, it was selected an organization created for transaction costs on supplier‟s investments during the delivery project phase due to right selection of types of contracts, as well as those process and systems implemented in all the project offices. These process and systems helped it to detect on time potential problems as well as take decisions and covered: the selection of suppliers through the bidding process, the negotiation of contracts, the monitoring, controlling and reporting performance, the closure of the project and the last payments for contractors. The PBO tried to keep a good communication with contractors and at the same time, it developed a team work feeling in which both parts supported each other. It could be observed that : the  it is possible to achieve successfully the organization‟s objectives and minimize the transactions costs during the execution through essential factors as a careful and detailed planning, team work with all the areas involved, communication and hardworking.</p>

In this changing world, companies have had to learn how to formulate and implement their strategies through projects and organizational structures in order to successfully face threats and opportunities. However, the management of multiple projects is not easy and due to this complexity, a new type of organization has emerged, called Multiproject organization. Depending to its characteristics, this new organization can be classified in project oriented (POO) or project based (PBO) (Arvidsson, 2009). Before to execute a project, the organization needs to evaluate its resources and decide if should buy the project through contractors or make it with its own resources (Müller and Turner, 2005). A Project Based Organization (PBO) which manages multiple projects at the same time through contractors requires to keep a good monitoring and controlling project performance, and to create the best project governance structure. About these subjects, there have been journals and books published since an academic perspective; but, not all of them have described these topics in a real organization. The aim of this research is to learn how these concepts are applied in a real project based organization, as well as the problems that can be faced and how they have solved them. The purpose of this thesis is to show how a PBO deals with the governance of its contracts, considering how the PBO estimates the cost of the project, how it deals controlling the contractors and their projects, as well as how it minimizes the transaction‟s (i.e. the project‟s) economic and administrative costs. Based in the purpose of the study, the research question is: “How do project minimize transactions costs in supplier engagements in delivery projects in the Swedish construction industry? the construction of a railway in the north of Sweden and due to it has 130 major contracts, can be considered as a multi-project organization. The Unit of Analysis used is the transaction cost in supplier involvement in project. A single case study was chosen to present and analyze the information from the organization. It was analyzed qualitative data collected through semi-structured interviews which were applied inside and outside the company, in order to make a triangulation of the data collected. The findings explained that the railway company analyzed, achieved to minimize its based organizations (PBOs)” In order to answer, it was selected an organization created for transaction costs on supplier‟s investments during the delivery project phase due to right selection of types of contracts, as well as those process and systems implemented in all the project offices. These process and systems helped it to detect on time potential problems as well as take decisions and covered: the selection of suppliers through the bidding process, the negotiation of contracts, the monitoring, controlling and reporting performance, the closure of the project and the last payments for contractors. The PBO tried to keep a good communication with contractors and at the same time, it developed a team work feeling in which both parts supported each other. It could be observed that : the  it is possible to achieve successfully the organization‟s objectives and minimize the transactions costs during the execution through essential factors as a careful and detailed planning, team work with all the areas involved, communication and hardworking.

The relation between Culture and Business has caught researchers’ attention long ago; itis not hard to find studies relating to these topics. According to Hofstede et al. (2010, p.18), Hampden-Turner and Trompenaars (2012, p. 8), and Erez and Gati (2004, p. 5),culture can be defined in many levels, for example, organizational culture, and national culture. The field of Business also contains several disciplines, for example, International Business Management, Project Management, and Project Governance. However, not somany studies can be found studying the relation between National Culture and Project Governance; therefore, this study is focused on this relation.This study is designed following a qualitative approach in order to clarify the relation between National Culture and Project Governance Principles. Case studies are used targeting the IT industry of three countries, Spain, Sweden, and Taiwan. These cases also contain the classical theory of cultural dimensions from Hofstede. Hofstede’s dimensionsare Power Distance (PDI), Individualism vs. Collectivism (IDV), Uncertainty Avoidance(UAI), Masculinity vs. Femininity (MAS), Long-term Orientation (LTO), and Indulgencevs. Restraint (IDU). They are applied in this study for distinguishing the differences between countries. This study is also based on the definition of Project GovernancePrinciples from Garland (2009), Klakegg (2008), and Müller et al. (2013). ProjectGovernance Principles are split into two categories as well, hard/ structural principles andsoft/ behaviour principles.In order to clarify the link between National Culture and Project Governance Principles,this thesis’ authors interviewed 19 people, including 10 project managers and 9 experts.All of them have a long experience dealing with Project Management in the three selected countries. Their answers are based on the knowledge and experience of Project Management and Project Governance, as well as their opinions about their own national culture. After analysing the interviews, the authors consider that differences between these three countries in Project Governance and Project Governance Principles do exist. On the other hand, there are also some similar parts, for example, the influence ofcustomers’ orientation and preference. Moreover, respondents, Project Managers and Experts, all mentioned it is also necessary to be aware of the globalized environment, inother words, there is no influence of a single national culture in one country anymore.However, they all admit the importance of their own national culture as well. All these findings from this study encourage further and deeper study in the future.

The nature of software development has changed in last decade. Waterfall or traditional command and control methods have been replaced by Agile methodologies. Agile came as a “solution” to the disadvantages of the waterfall methodology, but using Agile has its own challenges. Due to the attractive characteristics of Agile such as flexibility and short time-to-market, Agile development has been increasingly popular and the number of organisations which have started to move to Agile is growing every day. Implementing new methodologies in any organisation is always a big challenge, especially for large-scale organisations due to their complexity, many different interacting interfaces, strong organisational culture, etc. The nature of these challenges and obstacles changes from different perspectives within an organisation, and each of these perspectives needs to be studied and investigated to ensure a successful transition from traditional approaches to Agile. In this thesis we focus on the project manager and project governance perspectives. We aim to define the success and failure factors that play a key role in moving from traditional approaches to Agile approaches in large-scale organisations. To address these challenges we conducted literature reviews on the latest research in implementing Agile methodologies. To collect our data we used a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods. We explored both IT project manager and Chief project manager opinions and experiences of the organisations by conducting interviews and questionnaires in our research. The results reveals the difficulty to find proper product owners in the Agile projects. It is challenging to set a product owner who has Agile knowledge and is expert in the project domain. Specialized training and coaching for product owners is mentioned as one of the solutions that could be provided for this challenge. “Distributed teams”, “Lack of focus on the business side” and “Weak coaching and support” are some of the other critical areas which have been presented by the participants in the interviews and survey in this study. The main conclusion is that in order to have a successful transition to Agile approaches, the Agile mind-set should be set in all different part in an organizations, not only the development side and also that everyone have to understand “Why” Agile is beneficial. Also the communication of lessons learnt and feedback should be strong and effective in order to avoid repetition of the same mistakes. In addition, specialized training and coaching for different roles within the period of the development is necessary to ensure the successful adoption of Agile. / Synen på mjukvaruutveckling har förändrats under det senaste decenniet; Vattenfalls- eller traditionella kommando- och styrmetoder har ersatts av Agila metoder. Agila utvecklingsmetoder kom som en "lösning" till nackdelarna med vattenfalls metodiken, men användning av Agila metoder har sina egna utmaningar. På grund av Agila metoders attraktiva egenskaper såsom flexibilitet och kort tid till marknaden, har denna typ av utveckling blivit alltmer populärt och antalet organisationer som har börjat flytta till Agila metoder växer varje dag. Att genomföra nya metoder i en organisation är alltid en stor utmaning. Särskilt för stora organisationer på grund av deras komplexitet, med tanke på många olika samverkande gränssnitt, stark organisationskultur, etc. Karaktären på dessa utmaningar och hinder ändras från olika perspektiv inom en organisation, och vart och ett av dessa perspektiv behöver studeras och undersökas för att säkerställa en framgångsrik övergång från traditionella metoder till Agila metoder. I denna avhandling fokuserar vi på projektledare och projektförvaltningsperspektiv. Vi strävar efter att definiera framgångs- och misslyckande faktorer som spelar en nyckelroll i att flytta från traditionella metoder till Agila metoder i storskaliga organisationer. För att möta dessa utmaningar genomfört vi dessutom en litteraturstudie av den senaste forskningen om införande av Agila metoder. För att samla våra data vi använt en kombination av kvalitativa och kvantitativa forskningsmetoder. Vi utforskade både projektledare för IT och chefs-projektledare sidor av organisationer genom intervjuer och enkäter i vår forskning. Resultaten visar den kritiska roll produktägare utgör i Agila projekt. Det är en utmaning att tillsätta en korrekt produktägaren som har Agile kunskap och är expert i projektet domänen. Specialiserad utbildning och coaching för produktägare nämns som en av de möjliga lösningar som finns för denna utmaning. "distribuerade team", "brist på fokus på affärssidan" och "Svag coachning och support" är några av de andra viktiga områden som har lagts fram av deltagarna i intervjuerna och undersökning i denna studie. Den viktigaste slutsatsen är att för att få en lyckad övergång till Agila metoder bör Agilt tänkande tillämpas i alla delar i en organisations, inte bara utvecklingssidan, utan alla måste förstå "varför" Agila metoder är fördelaktigt. Även överföring av lärdomar och återkoppling bör vara stark och effektiv för att undvika återkommande samma misstag. Dessutom, specialiserad utbildning och coaching för olika roller och inom den tidsfrist för utvecklingen är nödvändig för att säkerställa ett framgångsrikt antagande av Agila arbetsmetoder.

In the Middle East real estate industry, 46% of projects fail in terms of strategic dimensions. Based on the dynamic capabilities approach and contingency approach, the purpose of this exploratory multiple case study was to identify the successful strategies project leaders used to improve the alignment of projects with business strategy. Data were collected from 7 Skype semistructured interviews with real estate construction project leaders from 3 real estate organizations ranked among the top 10 in the Middle East. Public organizational documents were used for methodological triangulation. A thematic coding approach was adopted following a nonlinear sequential process that involved four stages: (a) reading and preparing the collected data, (b) coding, (c) abstracting the codes into conceptual categories, and (d) identifying the themes' relationships and patterns and creating a thematic map. The 4 themes identified were the (a) flow of strategy, (b) governance of projects during the development phase, (c) governance of projects during the delivery phase, and (d) measurement of project performance and strategic success. The results confirmed the idiosyncratic nature of the selected contexts and the need to increase some dynamic capabilities' dimensions. The contribution of this study to positive social change includes improved community lifestyle and environmental quality.

Uppsatsen utgår ifrån Agency- och Stewardship Theory samt Project Governance som bakgrund till att beskriva hur projektorganisationer arbetar med styrning av projekt. Studien ämnar skildra hur styrning av projekt påverkar projektbeställares och projektledares arbete i projekt vad gäller tillsyn, tillit samt kommunikation. För att göra detta är studien baserad på sju kvalitativa semi-strukturerade intervjuer med respondenter som verkar inom olika branscher på arbetsmarknaden. Datan från intervjuerna bearbetades sedan med s.k. deduktiv tematisk analys för att göra den mer presenter- och hanterbar. Agency- och Stewardship Theory är nära sammankopplade med Project Governance, även om de i sig själva är helt skilda. Agency- och Stewardship theory berör den eventuella problematik som kan uppstå när en uppgift delegeras från en part till en annan, något som är högst aktuellt i en projektorganisation. Project Governance är däremot ett ramverk vari det framkommer hur moderorganisationen vill att projekt förhåller sig till rörande ett antal parametrar. Vi har valt att presentera fyra olika perspektiv på Project Governance och en sammanställning av gemensamma drag i perspektiven är att Project Governance involverar ett antal styråtgärder så som att anpassa projektets syfte och mål med moderorganisationens, olika former av kontrollmekanismer och styrgruppens sammansättning. Det framkom i intervjuerna och sedermera i resultatet att inslag av Project Governance är ständigt påverkande och återkommande i samtliga av respondenternas arbetssituation. Det rör sig om generella styrmedel så som ekonomimöten med kunder eller entreprenörer och rapporteringsskyldigheter till fasta beslutspunkter och kontinuerliga möten med styrgruppen. Det främsta och kanske mest utpräglade resultatet är hur pass mycket tilltro det finns i s.k. partneringssamarbeten och hur styrningen blir allt mer komplex när allt fler företag blandas in.

In this thesis is discussed the evolution of the governance for the projects constituting a program. The different kinds of programs are first presented. A strong focus is given to the analysis of the actors of the governance and their role. A literature review of these characteristics for project and program governance shows the important role of the sponsor and the manager of the project. A case study of a global program in the luxury group LVMH has been realized for this thesis. This program, called Sapphire consists of the worldwide implementation of a Swiftnet platform in the affiliate of the group. This platform enables to realize secure payments and to receive account statements every day. One characteristics of the program implementation is that the mother houses implementation is handled by a project unit in the holding company. The implementations in the affiliates of the mother houses are then managed by the mother house itself. The main conclusions were: - The perspective of a first implementation is a governance one from the holding company toward the mother house. However, it shifts to a support perspective between the holding company and the mother house for the next implementation. - The project manager moves from the holding company to the mother house. The broker and the steward are thus in the mother house for the affiliate implementation. This practice enables LVMH to keep a small program team whose role becomes like the one of a program management office. - The project unit thus has first a managerial role which is transformed to a support role. However, it remains able to take decisions in case of potential failures The degree of generalizability of this study is finally addressed. This evolution of the governance could also be observed in other temporary programs like ERP implementations.

Infrastrukturprojekt står inför många utmaningar varav kostnadsuppskattning är en av dem. Det har i tidigare studier konstaterats att kostnadsöverskridanden är vanligt förekommande. Effekterna av felaktiga kostnadsberäkningar och tilldelning av ekonomiska medel har däremot inte belysts i lika stor utsträckning. Syftet med studien är således att undersöka huruvida budgeten upplevs anpassas till projektet och dess behov eller vice versa. För att besvara den övergripande frågeställningen har studien genomförts med en kvalitativ metodologi och induktiv ansats. Vidare framkom tre teman: 50 nyanser av projektbudgetering, Antingen så bråkar vi eller så gör vi det tillsammans och Vi tänkte oss en Porsche men det blev en Volvo. Tillsammans ger de en övergripande bild av hur relationen mellan tilldelning av ekonomiska medel, projektstyrning och resultat tolkas. Det som framkommer i studien vittnar om att infrastrukturprojekt har många bottnar och sanningar när det kommer till budgetering, genomförande och slutprodukt. Mycket går att härleda till gällande lagstiftning likväl som de olika entreprenad- och ersättningsformer som aktörer inom infrastruktur har att förhålla sig till. Slutsatserna pekar på att det till syvende och sist är pengarna som kommer först och att projektet får anpassa sig därefter. / Infrastructure projects face many challenges, of which cost estimation is one of them. Previous studies have found that cost overruns are common. On the other hand, the effects of incorrect cost calculations and the allocation of financial resources have not been highlighted to the same extent. The purpose of the study is thus to investigate whether the budget is perceived to be adapted to the project and its needs or vice versa. To answer the overall question, the study was conducted with a qualitative methodology and inductive approach. Furthermore, three themes emerged: 50 shades of project budgeting, Either we fight or we do it together and We imagined a Porsche but we got a Volvo. Together they provide a comprehensive view of how the relationship between allocation of financial resources, project management and results are interpreted. What emerges in the study testifies that infrastructure projects have many bottoms and truths when it comes to budgeting, implementation and the end product. Much can be deduced from current legislation as well as the various forms of contracting and compensation that parties in infrastructure must deal with. The conclusions indicate that when push comes to shove the money always comes first and that the project must adapt accordingly.