This work is a study examining the causes of fire fighting in software projects. Fire fighting is the practice of reactive management, i.e. focus being put at solving the problem of the moment. The study in the thesis is performed in two parts, one part is a literature study examining what academia considers as the reasons of fire fighting and how to minimise the problem. The other part of the thesis is an interview series performed in the industry with the purpose of finding what they consider the causes of the fire fighting phenomena. What is indicated by the interview series, as being the main causes of the problems are problems that are related to requirements, and problems caused by persons with key knowledge leaving the project.

Detta arbete undersöker orsakerna bakom "fire fighting" i mjukvaru projekt. "Fire fighting", eller brandsläckning, är utövandet av reaktivt management, dvs. att gruppen lägger fokus på att lösa de problem som för tillfället finns i projektet. Arbete är uppbyggt i två delar, den ena delen är en literaturstudie och den andra en studie av vad industrin anser orsaka "fire fighting" beteendet.