Link to thesis. - Concept - NTNU

ARTICLE IN PRESST. Williams et al. / International Journal of Project Management xxx (2009) xxx–xxx 11experienced contractors appears to have been valuable.Skjold had the problem that the QA consultants werenot allowed to access the suppliers’ personnel. For 2MS, the effect of other governance processes wereinteresting, i.e. NAO, Parliament and Treasury. The ability to look at cost and time issues varied.NEADS had a project-independent cost; there weremethodological issues in IFI2, and the problem of noalternative source of data in Skjold. The cost analysespresented for IFI2 by the project organisation and theQA team may have differed. It is interesting that itwas another governance mechanism (Parliament) thatpicked up the optimism bias for 2MS, in benefits, ratherthan costs.This study has looked at a number of frameworks in astructured way, and provides a checklist for anyone lookingat a particular framework and wondering about itsessential nature, or designing a new framework: the discussionhere outlines how frameworks differ. But the maintopic of this paper was to look at how these frameworksand their differences actually play out in practice, generallyfollowing, but always a little different, from those espousedby the authorities. The two sets of bullet-points above givedetailed conclusions as to what was beneficial and whatwas less so in the actual use of the frameworks.This is a very small sample from which to draw conclusions,although we did try to make it balanced. Clearly,there also were issues in the cases that were provided forthe researchers to study, which limited not only the findings,but also the generalizability of those findings. Thismay partly explain why we found surprisingly little impactof governance frameworks on the projects. Due to the complexityand sensitivity of defence projects, and commercialconsiderations, the authors could not get data on somegovernance aspects, and we also had disappointingly littlevisibility of cost and time estimation. Moreover, thisresearch is just one small step; further research could usefullyseek a wider understanding of the influence betweenframeworks and their context by studying more frameworksin different contexts, together with more programmesand projects.In conclusion, we have characterized the institutionalframeworks and their differences. We have seen how theywork out in practice, and that while the potential effectwas large, the cases we studied did not show their fullpotential, key benefits being legitimization for the projectand reassurance for the project owner. The importance ofgovernance was apparent, particularly in the early stagesof projects where concepts are established.References[1] Malgrati A, Damiani M. Rethinking the new project managementframework: new epistemology, new insights. In: Proceedings of thePMI (Project Management Institute) research conference, Seattle;2002. p. 371–80.[2] Flyvberg B, Bruzelius N, Rothengatter W. Megaprojects and risk: ananatomy of ambition. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press;2003.[3] Easterby-Smith M, Thorpe R, Lowe A. Management research: anintroduction. London: Sage; 1991.[4] Eden C, Huxham C. Researching organisations using action research.In: Clegg S, Hardy C, Nord W, Lawrence T, editors. The SAGEhandbook of organization studies. 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