As most of the project management models were developed for larger projects, there is a lack of understanding of what project managers in short duration projects do. Short-duration projects are projects in multi-project environments lasting for a number of weeks rather than a number of months. Even if they are common today, short-duration projects have not yet attracted the interest of project researchers. The present study aims to analyze what the project managers in short duration projects do and to develop a method for studying the project managers at work. A theoretical framework is built on earlier studies of managers’ work, suggesting three areas having impact on the project manager’s work. The impacting areas are the project, the project manager’s experience, and the organizational context of the project. The project manager and the assisting project manager were studied while managing a sub-project in a greater telecom system project. The project managers were studied one week each using participant observation and interviews. The findings indicate that much of the time at work was spent in meetings of different kinds, to deal with change, and to guard the production teams from being disturbed by changes in the environment. It was also found that studying a multi-project environment from the sub-project’s perspective gives a different view on multi-project environments that have earlier been presented as the project managers in the short-duration project constantly have to adjust to changes, inputs and demands from the surrounding projects and functional organizations. In the end some proposals on directions for further studies of managers of short-duration projects are made.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:oru-61254 |
| Date | January 2004 |
| Creators | Nilsson, Andreas |
| Publisher | Umeå universitet, Samhällsvetenskaplig fakultet, Handelshögskolan vid Umeå universitet, Umeå : Umeå universitet |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Licentiate thesis, monograph, info:eu-repo/semantics/masterThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | Företagsekonomiska publikationer, 0349-2230 ; 174 |
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