Verktækni - 2019, Síða 106

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Stratified, purposeful sampling was applied to ensure that the focus group participants represented a
number of disciplinary affiliations and work profiles (Lyons, 2000). Out of the eight participants, five
were males and three were females. The age distribution in the group was 25 - 54 years. All participants
have university degrees at master´s level— MBA, social science, civil engineering, computer engineering
and humanities. Three of the participants had completed an executive master´s program in project
management (MPM program). The participants represented companies from different business sectors,
consulting firms, a financial institution, a civil contractor, an electric power production company, an IT
contractor and an aviation services company. All participants had experience in project management,
ranging from moderate to extensive. Three of them had an international IPMA project management
certification (C or B level) and two of them were coordinating extensive project management portfolios
for their companies. Half of the participants had been active in the Icelandic Project Management
Association and served as board members.

The focus group met for a 4-hour discussion on chosen topics, for which the participants had
volunteered. The focus group discussion was prepared in such a way that it would be issue-driven and
theory-based. The group was first introduced to some of the basic concepts of projectification and to
the study on future trends in the project management discipline—as we have explained in this paper.
Particular emphasis was put on explaining the four trends that scored highest in the Delphi study.

Design thinking methodology was used as a framework for the work session. All participants were
divided into two groups that worked on the same subjects. The objective was to engage all participants
in contributing and getting on board, and the focus was on sharing thoughts rather than on detailed
discussion.

For each of the four trends, the following procedure was applied:
 The particular trend to be discussed was shown on a slide, with one focus question for that trend.
 Silent individual brainstorming for 5 minutes, during which each participant wrote his/her ideas on
sticky notes.
 A 25-minute round the table sharing session. The participants shared their sticky notes, one note at
a time, and put them on a wall. After all team members had shared their sticky notes, the group
started to cluster the data. Common topics or patterns emerged, and the groups defined headlines
for the different clusters.
 A 20-minute session where the two groups presented their findings and discussed them. The whole
group agreed on a common understanding regarding the trend, before moving on to the next one.

The facilitation of the work session was mainly based on keeping to the timeline. Also, if participants got
stuck in a detailed discussion, or if one participant took too much time to share her/his thoughts, a
facilitator intervened in the discussion to keep to the timeline. Sometimes the participants ran into
difficulties in clustering the data and in such cases a facilitator assisted the group. All results (sticky
notes and headlines) were put on a whiteboard, photographed and documented digitally. All discussions
were also recorded digitally.