Project Overload in Project Based Organizations - Causes, Symptoms and Effects : A study of Project Members and their Projects

This study investigates the matter of project overload which project members have to face in project based organizations. The thesis is based on 13 interviews with project team members in different project based companies and industries in the countries Sweden, Iceland and Germany. To support the in...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Hochdorfer, Tobias, Bjarnason, Gudmundur
Format: Bachelor Thesis
Language:English
Published: Högskolan i Kalmar, Handelshögskolan BBS 2007
Subjects:
Online Access:http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hik:diva-162
Description
Summary:This study investigates the matter of project overload which project members have to face in project based organizations. The thesis is based on 13 interviews with project team members in different project based companies and industries in the countries Sweden, Iceland and Germany. To support the interviews and to gather a broader understanding of the topic an online-questionnaire was provided to 103 project workers and managers in 6 companies in the same countries, of those 103, 47 participated. The result of the online-survey shows, that around 70 percent have ever felt overload with their project work. The guiding research question for this study is: Why does project overload occur, how can it be recognized and how does it influence the project work? The research question has been chosen in order to give a broad understanding of project overload. The causes, symptoms and effects of project overload are analyzed on the basis of the interviews and the online-survey in the consulting, construction, IT and customized high-tech manufacturing industry. The results of the study shows the most important factors why project overload occurs, how it can be recognized by the project members and how it influences important aspects of successful project management like time, budget and quality.