Link to thesis - Concept - NTNU

quantified during the life cycle of projects and the result is a curve similar to the illustrative models used in manytext books on project management. Around the time for final approval, the project management consultants saw itmanageable to have an average of 6% of the total project budget still open, with a standard deviation of 5%,maximum 18% and minimum 0.2%. These numbers are based on the 23 projects that did use reduction list with duedates. Another representation of the remaining flexibility at the time of final approval is the fact that 8% of theproject budgets were allocated as reserves, to cover unexpected expenses. An approximation of the manageable totalremaining flexibility at the time of parliamentary approval is therefore estimated to be in the range between 9 and14% of total budgets.The applied methodology is partly prospective in the meaning that the projects and parameters to be studied wereselected prior to conducting the analyses. The methodological discussion in the paper on prospective andretrospective research designs is inspired by medical research. Regarding future research, continued use ofprospective research designs in project management is interesting and desired. Such designs have the possibility tocontribute to enhancing the credibility of project management as a research field.18