Anna Jerbrant

The resource allocation syndrome: the prime challenge of multi-project management?

This paper explores the nature of organizational settings, where a large extent of the operations is organized as simultaneous or successive projects. Anchored in qualitative case studies, the paper analyzes why the resource allocation syndrome is the number one issue for multi-project management and discusses the underlying mechanisms behind this phenomenon.

Managing project portfolios : balancing flexibility and structure by improvising

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to situate project portfolio management practice and explore its improvisational nature. The overall aim is to deepen the knowledge of what project portfolio ...

Matching Service Offerings and Product Operations: A Key to Servitization Success

OVERVIEW: Many manufacturers are moving to servitization, but making that move successfully requires considering the underlying business logic of a division or product. Differences in existing conditions, such as product characteristics or other business attributes, may determine success in transition to a services-based business model and create challenges for a firm moving, for instance, from a spare-parts model to advanced service contracts. Our study pinpoints a number of key product attributes that define how far a company can move up the service ladder. The findings suggest that the Power-by-the-Hour model pioneered by Rolls-Royce suits products that constitute critical ancillary input to, and not essential elements of, customers’ core processes; that require low initial investments relative to high total costs of ownership; that are used in controllable operating environments with measurable performance requirements; and that are associated with high risk and high costs in the event of failure. Further, the service delivery system must be integrated and orchestrated to be product-specific—that is, aligned with the function and operating conditions of the product in use.

Organising project‐based companies

Purpose – With the purpose of enhancing the understanding of multi‐project management, this paper is based on the findings of a doctoral thesis that focuses on the management and organisation of project‐based companies.Design/methodology/approach – The research presented here is based on an inductive and qualitative case study approach, characterised by an exploratory purpose and based on an in depth analysis of two individual cases.Findings – The study sheds light on several important aspects for managing and organising the special dynamics that characterise project‐based organisations. The thesis discusses how the balance between structuring mechanisms and the ability to handle the ever‐present uncertainty in project‐based organisations (PBOs) can be understood. This balance is necessary in order to handle the amount of changing requirements – both operational and contextual – during a certain period of time, thereby, being given the opportunity to encourage the organisations dynamic capability.Practic...

Task lists as infrastructure: an empirical study of multi-project work

Multi-project work is fragmented and unpredictable making project professionals continuously facing the risk of experienced control being reduced. In such work settings, there is an increased need for (temporary) sense making structures. In this article, the concept of infrastructure (Bowker and Star, 2002) is applied to multi-project work. The findings, which are based on 43 interviews with multi-project professionals, reveals that task lists are important infrastructures created for supporting sense making, control and prioritising. The task lists reduces ambiguity and uncertainty and thus bridge the gap between organisational demands and individual resources providing room for improvised action.

Mechanisms of Isomorphism in Project-Based Organizations

This article challenges the dominant assumption of goal rationality behind temporary organizations’ design in project-based organizations (PBOs). While extant literature posits that organizations strive to select the most appropriate project arrangements to fit particular task requirements at hand, findings from an in-depth ethnography-inspired case study suggest that projects in PBOs tend to imitate each others structures, strategies, and practices with little consideration of the potential performance effects. Building upon the new institutionalism, this article conceptualizes the PBO as an organizational field of temporary and permanent organizations embedded in wider organizational and institutional fields and explicates isomorphic processes among temporary organizations in PBOs.

Leading the Teacher Team - Balancing Between Formal and Informal Power in Program Leadership

This continuous research within Nordic engineering institutions targets the contexts and possibilities for leadership among engineering education program directors. The IFP-model, developed based on analysis of interviews with program leaders in these institutions, visualizes the program director’s informal and formal power. The model is presented as a tool for starting a shared discussion on the complexities of the leadership of engineering program development. The authors liken program development to hunting in teams. Each individual expert in the program is needed, and all experts will need to work and collaborate for the same target. This calls for strategic and long-term thinking of engineering education development. Institutions should support the development of both formal structures as well as informal leadership skills among their program directors, but never fall for the temptation to see the program director as the only actor on the stage.