The Motivation of Project Managers. A Study of Variations in Project Managers' Motivation and Demotivation by Triangulation of Methods

Abstract

Both practical work and literature studies have confirmed the project work gives rise to many motivational reactions, and that for the project manager many of them vary in a particular, recognizable way in the different phases of the project life cycle. This way in recognition behind the decision to make a thorough, scientific analysis at the PHD-level of the process by which project managers are motivated. The phenomenon was studied from two different angles by socalled “triangulation” of methods. One angle was a typical qualitative method, in which through “open interviews” with a limited number of Norwegian project managers their motivational reactions were examines. The other one was to apply a typical quantitative method in which a computer simulation model of a project based on the principle of System Dynamics was built and run, from which variations in managerial motivation in projects could be studied. Both approaches were initiated by a questionnaire survey of factors assumed to be important for project managers.