| Summary: | In a global economy it is important to understand what project management is and how it functions in a contemporary company. This report includes an empirical case study of a project flow, which was conducted in the department Packaging Concept (PC) which is a part of Stora Enso. As all of PC´s customer enquiries are unique and must be considered an individual project, PC continuously works in projects. An analysis of the project flow was conducted based on interviews at and visits to PC as well as relevant documents distributed by the department. The report gives an understanding and analysis of how PC works in projects. A description of the project flow is given and the project roles are defined. Furthermore, PC´s way of following up projects as well as managing risks are presented and analysed. The analyses in this report are based on a chapter that includes relevant project- and process management theory. PC´s project flow is long and includes many steps that must be conducted in order to deliver a good result to the customer. This project flow can be divided into the initial phase, the preliminary study phase, the planning phase, the implementation phase and the completing phase. In order to support the employees, PC has templates and instruction manuals that give clear guidelines and directives on how to manage a project. The management and the employees at PC see the project flow as a process giving an overall picture of the project flow. There are many players involved in the course of a project. Internally in PC, the project roles are divided between the management, the salesmen, the project engineers and the service engineers. Management orders the project while the project engineer is the project manager. A team of suppliers, a salesman and service engineers constitute the project group. Special focus has been placed on how PC manages project evaluation and risk management. Analyses of these two elements were done, and the findings in this report are that PC has inadequate guidelines for managing project evaluation and for managing risk. PC has managed to make the project flow clear and easy to work with. Everybody in the department understands the general picture of the project flow and the role that they and their colleagues play. In our opinion this is due to the clear guidelines and directives communicated through templates and instruction manuals. These are, however, not currently sufficient. Better documented guidelines for managing project evaluation and risk management should be completed by the management.
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