The case

The case study was conducted for a life-science company as a part of a master’s thesis (Korpi, 2026). The main aim of the thesis was to recognize development areas in the company’s project management practices and provide development recommendations for said processes. The company had been formed a couple of years prior to the study when three equally sized subsidiary companies with complimentary skillsets merged.

The project management tools and practices utilized in the company’s former subsidiaries had not been consolidated and there were physical barriers; during the study the company still operated in its’ subsidiaries’ original facilities, one of which was situated several kilometers removed from the other two. Furthermore, even though the original subsidiaries no longer existed, the new business units of the company had been roughly shaped according to them. The company had no general project management instructions or knowledgebase. Even though the company had standard operating procedures for research and development projects, they did not contain instructions on how the projects should be managed. The procedures mainly focused on describing different project phases and what kind of documentation was required for the project to move into the next project phase.

Conducting the research

A case study was selected as the main methodology for the study, because the aim of the study was to develop the case company’s project management practices by understanding how the different stakeholder groups felt about the meanwhile practices and what kind of expectations they had towards said practices. A case study was a good fit for this purpose, because they aim to study the unit formed by individuals in the context of those activities and influences from the surroundings (Gillham, 2010).

The main internal stakeholder groups for project management processes were defined to be project team members, project managers and top management. Project management processes directly affect the project team members and project team effectiveness, project managers are the ones implementing project management processes, and the top management has the final authority over the projects (Artto et al., 2011). Consequently, it was acknowledged that the participation of all the before mentioned stakeholder groups in the study would aid in getting more meaningful results from the study as well as make it easier to implement changes to the meanwhile project management processes according to the study findings later. Engaging people in the change process can both improve the change and decrease their change resistance (Kotter & Schlesinger, 2008; Khaw et al., 2022; Warrick, 2023). Especially in cases, where the change cannot be completely planned beforehand and the change initiator has limited power over the change target, which was the case in this study (Kotter & Schlesinger, 2008). Thus, achieving high participation from the company to the study was considered to be important.

The case study research consisted of a survey, project manager interviews and a workshop. First, the expectations for project management and experiences from the company’s project management practices were collected through a survey administered to project team members, project managers and top management. Then, project managers were interviewed to form an understanding of the project management practices and tools in-use. Finally, the resulting development recommendations for the company’s project management processes were refined in a workshop. The achieved engagement from the company was hight throughout the study: the top management showed interest, approximately 80% of the company’s employees working with projects answered the survey, all the company’s project managers agreed to be interviewed, and the workshop gathered participants from the project team members, the project managers and the top management. Due to this wide participation, the findings from the study could be considered to represent the whole.

Development needs

The main recognized development areas in the company’s project management practices were linked to organization, communication, unclear rationale for starting projects, and lack of common project management processes. These are common areas for project pitfalls (Artto et al., 2011; Turner, 1999).

The roles and responsibilities and consequently the decision-making hierarchy of the projects were unclear at different organizational levels. Prioritization between projects was also considered to be unclear as well as the rationale for starting some projects. A stronger link between the projects and the company’s strategy was requested for.

Some project-related matters were clearer for the top management and project managers than for the project team members. According to at least 40% of the project team members, the next milestone and schedule of the project were not clear, the project team’s responsibilities had not been assigned, and the internal priorities of the project changed suddenly. Meanwhile, for 100% of the project managers and top management, the next project milestone was clear, and the project team’s responsibilities had been assigned. The project schedule was also clear for 75% of the project managers and 80% of the top management. There were no common project management processes or data warehouse. The project management methods and tools utilized varied between individual project managers, but especially between business units – personnel working at different business units did not necessarily have access to the tools used by other business units. This created problems, especially for projects that spanned two or more business units. However, it was discussed that since the company’s projects differed both in size and nature, and good results had been obtained with different methods, forcing every project to utilize the same methods and tools was not necessarily desirable. In every case, it was acknowledged that sharing information and best practices would be beneficial – so that each project manager would be aware of the available tools and projects could learn from one another.

Development recommendations

The main development recommendations given for the company’s project management practices were to create non-compulsory company-wide general project management instruction, to make the organization as well as the communication around projects more effective and to consider procuring a company-wide project management tool and a project management course. Finally, it was recommended to re-survey project personnel’s views on the company’s project management practices after the general project management has been at use for one year to see what kind of further development steps could be beneficial. The need for these kinds of steps developing the organization, roles, responsibilities and processes of a founder-led company, or in this case companies merged into one, corresponds well with the company growth model presented by Greiner (1998). According to the model growing companies face five consecutive crises when they outgrow the management methods used so far: leadership, autonomy, control, red tape and internal growth crises. In this case the company was facing the leadership crisis where there is a need for creating more structure.

There was high engagement to the research from the company, and development steps were already begun during the research and have been continued since. The main principles for the new general project management instructions were created as a result of the research, and the first version of the actual instructions have since been completed. The requirements for a common project management tool have been discussed. The organization, roles and responsibilities around projects have been clarified and are still developed according to needs. Communication on the company’s strategy and its’ effect on prioritization has been increased. The clarity of decision-making structure, who has the right and responsibility to make decisions, and making sure that the right information reaches the right people at the right time are essential for successful strategy execution (Neilson et al., 2008).

Developing together

The survey, interviews and workshop utilized in the case study worked well in forming an understanding of the company’s situation and its’ development needs as well as tools in the actual development work. Due to the extensive participation from the company, the study was able to act as a platform for developing the company’s project management processes – information was shared, issues discussed and solutions developed. The development continues – together.

Sources:

Artto, K., Martinsuo, M., & Kujala, J. (2011). Project business. Helsinki. http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-92-8535-8.

Gillham, B. (2010). Case Study Research Mehtods. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. ISBN: 9781441159069.

Greiner, L. E. (1998) Evolution and revolution as organizations grow. Harvard Business Review, 76, 3, 55-68.

Khaw, K. W., Alnoor, A., Al-Abrrow, H., Tiberius, V., Ganesan, Y. & Atshan, N. (2023) Reactions towards organizational change: a systematic literature review. Current Psychology. 42(22), 19137—19160.https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03070-6.

Korpi, K. (2026) Coming together in projects – A case study on project management development. Unpublished master’s thesis, Turku University of Applied Sciences.

Kotter, J. P. & Schlesinger, L. A. (2008) Choosing strategies for change. Harward Business Review. Retrieved April 8^th, 2023, from https://hbr.org/2008/ 07/choosing-strategies-for-change.

Neilson, G. L., Martin, K. L. & Powers, E. (2008) The secrets to successful strategy execution. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved May 16^th, 2026, from https://hbr.org/2008/06/the-secrets-to-successful-strategy-execution.

Turner, J. R. (1999) The handbook of project-based management. Second Edition. The McGraw-Hill Companies. ISBN: 0-07-709161-2.

Warrick, D. D. (2023) Revisiting resistance to change and how to manage it: What has been learned and what organizations need to do. Business Horizons. 66, 433—441. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2022.09.001.