Eskalerande projekt i offentlig sektor - En fallstudie av polisens utredningsstöd
A large number of system development projects are allowed to proceed for too long, and leads to undesirable project outcomes. Research shows that more than half of the authorities involved reported that at least one of their projects have exceeded their budget, and that a third of all the projects had exceeded the budget. This problem led to the following research question: ?Which factors can explain projects continued escalation within public authorities?? To answer the question, a qualitative case study of the Swedish police?s implementation of PUST, a sort of case management system was conducted. The project received considerable media attention and a large amount of criticism was directed towards the project, partly because the project exceeded the timeframe and budget set at the start. Within the study, a large amount of published material has been gathered and structured chronologically. A great deal of the information will be collected from statements made by people involved with the project. These statements are analyzed with the chosen theories in mind. Among these are Escalation of Commitment, a collection of factors that lead to escalation within projects. The analysis shows that some projects can be faced with problems from the start of the project, because of a lack of technical knowledge, which leads to ill-informed decisions within the project. Furthermore a number of factors have been identified as fairly common, where resources continues to be invested due to the potential loss of the previous investment. Decision-makers can get defensive and try to uphold the image that the projects is on the right track. Additional factors have been identified, such as a dependency on consultants, which makes it difficult to know which approach the consultant has taken to the project.The conclusion within the study is that several of the factors from Escalation of Commitment are applicable to both the case study and similar projects. In addition to these factors, a lack of technical knowledge has been identifies as an additional factor that lead to projects continued escalation.Keywords: Escalation of Commitment, PUST, Off-the-shelf application, Self-Justification Theory, Sunk cost effect