WHAT DO YOU UNDERSTAND BY PROJECT MANAGEMENT WHAT IS ITS RELEVANCE IN DEVELOPMENT?

In order to understand the concept of project management, the two words project and management need to be defined separately and thereafter a unified definition of what project management is will be given.


Management according to Cusworth and Franks (1993:30) is the process of getting work done through other people by the use of human resources, materials and time to achieve objectives.

They also define project managers as those concerned to achieve specific objectives i.e project outputs, through the efforts of other people making up the project team.

Projects are initiatives designed to make impact on their environment and to achieve development through change; it is the responsibility of a project manager to guide the project towards achieving effective change.

Cusworth and Franks (1993: 3) also define a project as the investment of capital in a time-bound intervention to create productive assets.

Nsereko (2000:1) defines a project as a set of planned activities designed to achieve specific objectives within a given time and budgetary framework. Duncan (1975) says that management is getting things done. This means therefore that in order to put our plans into practice we need to get things done.


Nsereko (2000:1) Projects have become important instruments of development, i.e social and economic change and growth in the quality of life of a targeted population. Projects are principle means of mobilizing resources for development, since most donors, frustrated with the bureaucratic structures, corruption, wastage of time through endless meetings, paperwork, etc, have turned projects so that they can tie resources to specific activities and specific time.

Projects are effective means of translating plans and polices into specific courses of action. They can be used to channel development to specific beneficiaries and to particular locations.

Though important, many projects have failed because of poor design, lack of proper analysis and poor implementation. Projects designed with good intent and meant to benefit people end up being resisted by the same beneficiaries because they consider them irrelevant in addressing their problems or because the contribution those projects makes is minimal when they consider the situation before project intervention. Some projects are rejected on the account of their adverse effects on the environment and the local set up.

Clifford and Larson (2002: 2) Unlike much organizational work that is segmented according to functional specialty, projects typically require the combined efforts of a variety of specialists, instead of working in separate offices under separate managers, project participants whether they are engineer, financial analysts, marketing professionals or quality control specialists, work closely together under the guidance of a project manager to complete a project.

Project mangers are expected to marshal resources to complete a defined project on time, on budget and within specifications. Clifford and Larson (2002: 7)

Project management is no longer a special –need management, it rapidly becoming a standard way of doing business. Many firms are devoting an increasing percentage of their effort to defined projects. The future promises an increase in the importance and the role of projects in contributing to the strategic direction of organizations.

According to David Cleland, this is the “Age of project management’’ and as some of the diving forces of providing the momentum for project management include compression of product life cycle, speed as a competitive advantage, global competition, knowledge explosion, corporate down sizing and industry consolidation and restructuring.

Compression of the product life cycle is perhaps the most significant driving force behind the demand for project managers and management of projects. Speed is becoming an important mode of gaining competitive advantage. Speed also increases the number of new products developed each year, and thus, more projects.

The knowledge explosion has increased the number of new products each year. The divergent technologies and complexities included in these products have also increased. Coordinating the specialists needed to develop these products is ideally suited to project management.(10)

Increased global competition naturally leads to more attention to customer needs. Meeting the needs of customers frequently means customizing the product. Customizing results into more demand for project management.

Corporative down sizing and ‘rightsizing’ has left middle management a mere skeleton of its past, with corporations sticking to their core competencies. Project management is replacing middle level management. Industrial consolidation is resulting in more cross-culture projects that require close coordination. Project management is ideally suited to manage such international projects. Today more and more organizations have come to realize that managing projects can be a vital part of everyone’s job. Many companies are beginning to recognize that their entire staff can benefit from being trained in project management.

The process of managing projects the technical dimension of project management consists of the formal, disciplined, pure logic parts of the process. This relies on the formal m