Cross-functional challenges : a case study of a project in a Swedish retail company

Abstract: It has shown to be a challenge for many actors in the retail industry to adapt to the constantly changing consumer behavior. This challenge is argued to partly be caused by the industry’s pattern to work in silos. Cross-functional projects are the opposite of silos because they involve project members from several different departments that come together to work towards a common goal. Cross-functional projects promote knowledge sharing and are frequently used in development projects to adapt to a constantly changing business environment. This study aims to identify and understand some of the challenges that hinders actors within the retail industry to meet the constantly changing consumer behavior the industry is facing by doing a case study of a development project (Project A) with a cross- functional character in a large Swedish retail company (Company A). 11 interviews were conducted with various project members and several findings were made of the different challenges Project A had faced. One of the challenges was related to the project members struggle to balance their regular work with the work in the project which lead to low motivation from the project members to contribute to the project. Another finding was the challenge to synchronize the different activities in the project. However, the main finding of this thesis is that many of the challenges that occurred were due to Company A’s lack of project competence. How project competence has a direct influence on the project outcome is the theoretical contribution of this thesis to the existing literature and for this a revised model is proposed.