This thesis is about how project results can be improved in organizations. The focus is on project-intensive organizations, where a central part of the operative work is carried out in project form. This is common in product development, software development, business development, industrial construction, etc. In this thesis, a framework for project result improvement in organizations is developed (PRIO framework). The empirical data is based on a clinical research project in an organization called “Alpha”. People in Alpha worked for several years with improving the preconditions for product development projects, for example, by training employees, creating process descriptions, designing work templates and implementing information systems. The empirical material is understood using theories from project management, business process management and improvement work. In the analysis of the case, the author finds a need to go deeper towards the philosophcial realm and asking fundamental questions about the relationship between changes and the differences they make in project results. Philosophical foundations are explicated in order to provide a basis for understanding how project results can be improved. The PRIO framework highlights personal work processes and the way in which these processes influence strategy development processes, improvement processes, operative project processes and customer operations processes. Particular emphasis is put on the interaction between mind, body and artifacts when work is performed. For example: How can we understand the relationship between a documented project method and actions of employees? With a focus on project result improvement, several questions arise. What difference do you want to make? What order of change is required to make the difference? What can you change? How does the change lead to the difference? The answers to these questions have far-reaching consequences for initiatives targeting project result improvement. A fundamental question lies at the core of the thesis: What is the pattern which connects the change and the difference? The thesis suggests using a theory structure of calibration between multiple levels. The resulting PRIO framework can be used as a frame for inspiration for people working with project result improvement. The thesis is ended with a dialog written to highlight the findings in a consumable format. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 2005

This dissertation investigates how executives engage in information technology projects and how organizational control of IT projects forms and evolves over time. It contains an in-depth account of a large, multi-year IT project in a financial company. The story of the “New Deposit System” project provides insights into the dynamics of IT projects in organizations and the challenges facing executives engaging in the governance of these complex undertakings. Several characteristics of IT projects, such as their abstract nature, technological complexity and non-repetitiveness, render several of the manager’s trusted forms of control impracticable. Even the ideal of “strong top management support” is found to be problematic: it is an extraordinary measure unlikely to translate well into regular organizational practice. What we find instead are actors in search of means and ways to exercise influence. We find control to be reciprocal and dynamic, influenced by the organization and its history, by the principles and practices of corporate IT management and by the values and norms of the IT profession. In this environment, selection of key people, evolving trust, other people’s assessments and the construction and reshaping of a project image become important parts of the managerial repertoire for IT project governance. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 2002