Thesis (M.B.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1984.

While most western hydropower sites are already developed or protected by legislation, the aging hydropower park requires refurbishment actions. Especially to tackle the challenges of an increased fluctuation at the grid coming from the expansion of other renewable energy sources such as wind power. The company Fortum is carrying out a number of major refurbishment projects every year and want to enhance their time performance during the outage. Delayed projects are resulting in unexpected costs and production losses. By investigating 20 historical refurbishment outages from a project manager perspective, the delays are related to different sections of the outage time. These sections are referred to as work packages, meaning a set of activities related to a functional part of the plant. The material is based on interviews and project documentation. The outages are divided into three groups depending on the amount of delay and some additional set of factors are used in a comparison. The results are discussed from a time management and a multi-project perspective. The study can be viewed as an initial study to address time management challenges in a company. The methodology proves to be an efficient way to get time management challenges at a company to the surface. The results displays late manufacturing deliveries and overruns of assembly and erection durations as the most common reasons of delay. A number of potential success/failure factors are suggested. It is also pointed out that small projects are at risk being more delayed compared to larger ones.

published_or_final_version / abstract / Real Estate and Construction / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

This research studies project success in the context of decision-makers in young, entrepreneurial companies, namely startups. More precisely the companies are European companies that are independent, active and under 10 years of age, and furthermore identified as startups through a framework created from literature derived from Organizational Life Cycle theory and other pluralistic literature about startups. The main concentration is in the concepts related to project success: Project Success Criteria and Critical Success Factors, based on two research questions: 1. “What success criteria are perceived to be most relevant in the project management of startup firms?” 2. “What critical success factors are perceived to be most relevant in project management of startup firms and why?” Previous studies on project management have been mostly conducted in the context of large organizations and typically in a quantitative form. Studies in project management of startups have been scarce, and in project success, nonexistent. Researchers have called upon project literature that concentrates on particular organizational context. In this study, existing theories are studied to find the most suitable framework for success criteria. This study is conducted as a case study, wherein interviews were conducted with startup founders, partners and CEOs, located in Finland, Sweden and Germany. The data collection in the interviews consisted of both semi-structured questions and rating of importance regarding the elements of aforementioned theoretical frameworks of Project Success Criteria and Critical Success Factors, creating a rich set of data, forming holistic cases of the view of project success. The resulting indicate that the most relevant success criteria for startup decision-makers are connected to customer relations, which dictates also the importance of short-term and long-term goals. The economic goals as well the preparation for future were more polarizing. The concentration on customer criteria is not divergent from previous research, but the importance of team criteria is a noticeable difference and a common theme across cases. It is also noticeable in the statements of interviewees that in the startup context the uncertainty regarding products, customers, and economical factors create certain tensions in project success assessment. In Critical Success Factors, there were also clear themes that mirror the aforementioned results. It furthermore became apparent that startups do not have clearly established tools or methods for their project management, which may distinguish them from larger, more established organizations.

M. Tech. Business Administration / This paper aims to determine the role and influence of emotional intelligence on overall efficiency in engineering project management. It also focuses on establishing whether emotional intelligence, when applied, does enhance project success and how project managers handle their emotions and relationships with stakeholders of projects.

Thesis (MTech. degree in Business Information Systems.)--Tshwane University of Technology, 2009. / Software projects often fails due to poor estimates. These estimation problems often involve the under- or over-estimation of costs, the duration of the project and the complexity of the system. Project estimation comprises one of the major aspects of project management which either makes or breaks a project. Accordingly the aim of this research is to identify estimation problems, their causes and their impact on the success or failure of projects. The results indicated that the majority of the participants developers and clients have experienced estimation problems in certain of the IT/software projects that they have either implemented or developed. These problems have tended to impact negatively on the outcome of the projects. Based on the research findings and on suggestions from various participants, recommendations are made that could assist the developers and clients of software/IT projects to prevent these estimation problems. Accordingly these recommendations could contribute to more successful projects.

Nowadays, creativity is crucial to implement for the success of companies. Meanwhile, directivity seems to have a very negative reputation in the first sight. The objective of this paper is to identify and present a situation of creativity during the implementation phase of a project where directivity is used. This study consists of two phases. The first one is the ambition to create a primary model based on the present theories which are namely creativity, implementation phase and directivity. The second phase then aspires to draw the potential connections with the help of a qualitative study led on five different projects managers. This should help refine the primary model which will also make it easier to understand such complex notion.

Deepwater Gulf of Mexico well construction operations are some of the most challenging and expensive operations in the E&P industry; not only does the outer continental shelf of the Gulf of Mexico present the distinct environmental challenges of hurricanes and loop currents, its geologic profiles can include such challenges as salt, tar or pressurized zones. To overcome these challenges technology is being pushed to its operational and mechanical limits but technology advances can only accomplish so much without the presence of capable personnel. In the E&P industry, human resources are becoming more limited due to the “Big Crew Change”; a disproportionate relief of the retiring Baby Boomers by Generation X workforce that now requires Generation Y assistance. Regardless of the aforementioned, operators venture out into deepwater with hopes to capitalize on the recently discovered attractive development and exploratory opportunities, but to do so they must organize and properly develop their internal well construction organization in a manner that all members are capable to address the challenges as they come. Therefore, team organization is an operator’s priority, a challenge that should be addressed through common project management practices. This paper parallels the project management practices to establish the appropriate organizational structure for an operator’s deepwater well construction group, manage the human resources to properly delineate responsibilities and to structure their staff management processes to acquire, develop and manage personnel in a manner scalable with the operator’s expansion agenda. / text

published_or_final_version / Civil Engineering / Master / Master of Philosophy

Σκοπός αυτής της εργασίας είναι η απόδειξη της αναγκαιότητας ενός συστήματος διαχείρισής αρχαιολογικών έργων, αξιοποιώντας μεθόδους διαχείρισης τεχνικού έργου, προσαρμοσμένες στη λογική και τη φύση του αρχαιολογικού έργου. Στόχος της εργασίας αυτής, είναι η ανάπτυξη μιας πρότασης μεθοδολογίας διαχείρισης του αρχαιολογικού έργου έτσι ώστε η διαχείριση αυτή να αποτελεί αναπόσπαστο κομμάτι του αρχαιολογικού έργου και όχι μια ευκαιριακή παρέμβαση σε αυτό. Πιο συγκεκριμένα η εργασία αυτή επιδιώκει να παρουσιάσει και να αναλύσει τις ιδιαιτερότητες των αρχαιολογικών έργων και να δώσει απαντήσεις στα παρακάτω ερωτήματα: • Τι ορίζουμε ως αρχαιολογικό έργο; Ποια η φύση και η λογική του αρχαιολογικού έργου; • Ποιες είναι οι ιδιαιτερότητες ενός αρχαιολογικού έργου και κατά πόσο διαφοροποιείται αυτό από ένα κοινό τεχνικό έργο; • Σε ποιο βαθμό μπορεί ένα αρχαιολογικό έργο να θεωρηθεί διαχειρίσιμο; Τέλος, έγινε προσπάθεια μελέτης του τρόπου διαχείρισης του αρχαιολογικού έργου καθώς και με βάση την παρούσα νομοθεσία, σε ποιο βαθμό μπορεί να εφαρμοσθεί στην πράξη μια μέθοδος διαχείρισης. / Main purpose of this study is to demonstrate the necessity of a system of management of archaeological projects, utilizing technical project management methods, tailored to the logic and nature of the archaeological project. Through this work we are aiming to develop a proposal for a methodology of archaeological project management so that management is an integral part of the archaeological project and not an opportunistic intervention on it. More specifically, this paper aims to present and analyze the particularities of archaeological projects in general and give answers to the following questions: • What we define as an archaeological project? What is the nature and logic of an archaeological project? • What are the specifics of an archaeological project and how it differs from any other technical project? • To what extent can an archaeological project be considered manageable? Efforts were made to study how archaeological project management can be organized, to what extent can be practically applied as a method of project management, under current legislature.