This thesis presents empirical research into the project risk pricing decision undertaken by Australian project leaders for domestic project finance. It addresses questions about the relative importance of various project finance risks on the project risk pricing decision; the impact of risk interactions; and the degree of self-insight possessed by Australian project leaders when making this decision. Five project financing risk most frequently cited in the literature, namely: operating, environmental, market, political/regulation, and sponsors, were selected. Sixteen hypothetical risk pricing cases were structured, which were completed by twenty-five project leaders working in Sydney. The collected data was analysed, and the results show that the five project financing risks had strong impact on the project risk pricing decision. Among them, market risk is the most influential factor, followed by operating, sponsors, and political/regulation risks, while environmental risk was the factor with least effect. Very little support, however, was provided for the hypothesis that risk interactions impact the project risk pricing decision. Among the ten two-level risk interactions tested, only the interaction between sponsors and political/regulation was found to be significant. In relations to the degree of self-insight, various comparisons between subjective and objective weights demonstrated that the project leaders, in general, were quite insightful about their project finance risk pricing decisions / Master of Commerce (Hons)

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Online learning appeals to busy professionals and project managers (PMs) since demands from work, family, and personal interests compete with the desire to engage learning and finish courses. The thesis critically analyzes adult learning literature, then develops models, and tests the approaches at a commercial university. The professional learning model overcomes the gap in applied online learning design and delivery theories through a perspective transformation of the fundamental educational psychology principles, to shift the philosophy towards an integrated humanistic-constructivist paradigm. The key principles emphasized in this new approach are andragogical motivation, self-schema, self-efficacy, and self-regulation. A repeated-measures quasi-experiment was designed and conducted in a university online MBA program (n=48), using a scientific research methodology (that controlled confounding factors) to empirically test the professional learning factor model. Paired-treatment tests, factor covariances, coefficient of multiple determinations, and cause/effect multiple regression findings were statistically significant at the 95% confidence level (most tests exceeded 99%). A linear mathematical predictor and systemic model was substantiated from the concept testing, to quantitatively explain 66%(r²) of cause-effect variance between the contextual factors and dependent variables. These findings were compared to, and were in agreement with similar studies. The limitations of the quasi-experiments are small sample size, natural selection (as opposed to pure randomization), and generalizability to other contexts (models not yet replicated). The research makes a theoretical and empirical contribution to four stakeholder domains - Project Management (PM) professionals, adult educators, academic research community, and the PM body of knowledge. The first value claim consists of empirically proven online learning design and delivery guidelines, that can be applied and/or replicated. Secondly, the research multi-methods to decrease time-to-market for these multi-year experiments. Lastly the research evidence might promote the development of more 'soft-skills' content in PM

Dr. Turner investigates whether an awareness of Emotional Intelligence competencies (EC) will impact the levels of job satisfaction and general job performance of the individual project team member as a predictor of project outcome. She undertook and constructed an empirical research project based on a project team EC enrichment framework. EC Team enrichment advocates the development of emotional competencies to achieve measurable improvements in job satisfaction and performance. The research was conducted in the United States defense industry environment and surveyed the project team members of a large-scale, dynamic project. This study was experimental in nature and the research was based on a quantitative approach tailored to minimize threats to validity through the use of a control group. Additionally, it involved elements of related qualitative research to interpret findings. An empirically-based, working hypothesis was presented to the effect that, a greater potential of project success can be realized by introducing information on emotional development to enhance behavioral competencies of all project team members. The case study included three distinct phases for pretest, treatment, and post-test. Results support the concept that an introduction to the concept of emotional intelligence can have a statistically significant impact on project performance through improvement of individual ratings for job satisfaction and professional performance.

Many musicians, artists and other creative thinkers often struggle with organizational skills in preparation for events that require detailed planning, notably recital preparation. Musicians often find themselves ill-prepared and must reschedule the event, recycle music that they do not wish to perform, or ultimately perform at a lower standard. Currently, there is no standardized, established model for pianists or other types of musicians to guide them in setting up a recital and successfully executing all of its parts from start to finish. This study, through discussion of the employment of project management principles, aids artists in putting together a performance successfully. Specifically, it explored the planning and execution of all facets of the performance. This study sought to present a guide on the basic steps in planning a successful recital using the established methodology of a business model and applying it to piano performance. The purpose of this study was to demonstrate how project management principles can be applied to recital preparation, planning and execution. The study addressed the returning performer; however, aspects of this study can be used by the student and seasoned professional alike. Results of the study generated an integrated project plan, illustrating the project life cycle of piano performance.

The cost of construction projects depends on their size, complexity, and duration. Construction management applies effective management techniques to the planning, design, and construction of a project from conception to completion for the purpose of controlling time, cost and quality. A real options approach in construction projects, improves strategic thinking by helping planners recognize, design and use flexible alternatives to manage dynamic uncertainty. In order to manage uncertainty using this approach, it is necessary to value the real options. Real option models assume independence of option holder and the impacts of underlying uncertainties on performance and value. The current work proposes and initially tests whether project management reduces the value of real options. The example of resource allocation is used to test this hypothesis. Based on the results, it is concluded that project management reduces the value of real options by reducing variance of the exercise signal and the difference between exercise conditions and the mean exercise signal.

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Purpose – To contribute to a better understanding of the progress and the success vs. failure in e-government development, based on case studies of two inter-organizational e-service projects. Design/Methodology/Approach – The analysis in the paper is made from a) an e-government systems development life-cycle perspective and b) a challenge and success factor perspective. The point of departure is theory and a comparative analysis of two e-government projects. Findings – The main results in this paper are 1) a combination of perspectives (in a project stage and analysis grid) that can serve as a support when managing e-service development and 2) a set of identified crucial success factors within an inter-organizational e-government project including project manager skills and position in the agency organization as well as when and how systems maintenance issues are introduced into a project. Existing theory and perspectives are also criticised based on the present study. Practical implications – Lessons to learn from a challenge and success factors perspective in two different e-government projects, and suggestions to revise an e-government development life-cycle in order to perform a better practice in the field. The revised/developed project stage and analysis grid presented in the paper is one way to deal with the challenges related to the management of e-service development in the public sector. Originality/value – This paper addresses a number of challenges of complexity and risk that e-government initiatives face. It is not an easy matter to realize such initiatives’ potential. A key research issue for the e-government field, as well as the information systems field in general, is to understand why some projects progress to success while others end in failure. This is the niche for the present paper.

In today’s competitive business world, every company wants to be more profitable. In order to keep the profit margin high, the companies need to work more. It is very hard to find any company which works on a single project. Actually it is not only any specific company’s practice rather it is a practice of the entire human being to do multiple works at the same time. The practice has also become quite common in the companies. Although the practice of working on multiple projects simultaneously has become popular for the companies overtime, the important thing is to manage all the projects efficiently so that all projects can be finished according to the plan. Multiple project management deals with a lot of challenges in terms of resource and time. The facts like resource sharing and resource constraint add more complexity to the management of such multiple simultaneous projects. It is difficult to understand the correct workload during the project and the effects of running all the simultaneous projects to the project deployment time. The situation becomes even critical if the projects run in a dynamic environment which may provide changes during any phase of it. Software development is such a process that deals with multiple projects and also the dynamic environment. The master study will focus on such case where the study has conducted in a software development company named ActionWave Development AB. ActionWave Development AB is dealing with multiple projects with having resource constraint. In this study, readers will come to know about the challenges of ActionWave Development AB in terms of resource scenario and deployment time in case of managing multiple projects simultaneously. The study will analyze the effect of having multiple simultaneous projects to the limited resource of ActionWave Development AB and will also show the effects on projects deployment time. The study does the analysis for the current case and an imaginary test case. Later solution has been provided to overcome the problem. Further recommendations were made in order to conduct an effective project management within the company.

In the new business economy, project management has become a central way for undertaking several of the business activities. One of the increasing and most significant concerns with projects is that, projects are behind schedule, over budget and show unsatisfactory performance in terms quality and customer satisfaction. In the last few decades the manufacturing industry successfully improved quality and productivity, by using the concepts of lean thinking. The thesis explores the relevance of lean concepts in project management and how lean concepts can improve project productivity. The qualitative method is used in this study. Further, a systematic approach was used to identify the relevance of lean concepts in project management. The qualitative data was collected using an interview with a project consultant. The results of the study reveal that all concepts of lean thinking are relevant to project management in specific kinds of projects. However, a greater degree of understanding and interpretation of each concept is needed when applying lean thinking in project management. Furthermore, some of the concepts have to be interpreted with caution when they are used in innovative projects. In general, it is found that, lean project management can improve project productivity. The findings suggest that the lean concepts can reduce cost and time which are two key measures of project success. The results of this study can be seen as a tentative framework intended to stimulate further discussion about integrating lean thinking in project and program management.