Det är osäkert vad det beror på : Multiprojektstyrning i forsknings- och utvecklingsenheter

Sammanfattning: BACKGROUND: Project based structures has become more and more common in the organizations of today. As the project based structures are given a more central role in the organizations the interdependencies between the projects are getting more attention. These structures need a new type of control to meet the unique challenges that arise. The research that has been done has been concentrated around the project form and the projects internal control, the area of multi-project management is therefore relatively unexplored. The few existing studies on the subject focus on projects in the construction industry why research in more complex fields of business have been requested. PURPOSE: The purpose of this thesis is to explore and analyze how knowledge intense multi-project organizations manage their project activities, and to determine how different organizational characteristics affect the need for management control systems. METHODOLOGY: The empirical data has been collected through interviews with personnel in BT Products R&D, Gambro R&D and AstraZeneca Development. These organizations are all mature and project intense. CONCLUSION: With an organization´s line of business follows a certain level of uncertainty and interdependencies between projects. Another important factor is the organization´s level of internal and external differentiation. These three factors together describe the characteristics of an organization, which forms the organization´s starting position. To handle the uncertainty of unpredicted events the organizations’ reflexes has to be quick enough; this is made possible through a project oriented organizational structure where the project managers have more authority than the function manager. Interdependencies between projects is handled through coordination, the level of coordination needed is dependent on the degree of interdependencies. Last but not least the organization has to handle the complexity that comes with the degree of internal and external differentiation. This is managed through the integration and extent of the management control systems. In the analysis chapter a model is presented that describes the relationship between the organization characteristics and management control systems.