The importance of project management on attainment of project outputs and deliverables; a case study of Amol Fish Farmers’ Project.

Abstract

Project management is all about success. Successful projects deliver value on time and within budget. Value is anything that benefits a person(s). Project management is important today because of tighter budgets, diminishing resources and time constraints. With project management, it is possible to focus on priorities, track and measure performance, overcome challenges and problems, become flexible enough to adapt to change and achieve higher performance and a higher probability of success in each project. In addition project management brings together and optimizes the resources necessary to successfully complete the project. The study was carried out to determine the importance of project management in the attainment of project outputs and deliverables and aimed at determining the relationship between the two variables that is project management and the attainment of project outputs and deliverables. Management was the independent variable and the attainment project outputs and deliverables the dependent variable. Based on empirical data drawn from the AMOL Fish Farmers’ Project qualitative analysis was used to present the findings of the study. The study establishes that project management is of paramount importance for a project to attain its outputs and deliverables. The study found out that Project management is important because of tighter budgets, diminishing resources and time constraints. With project management, it is possible to focus on priorities, track and measure performance, overcome challenges and problems, become flexible enough to adapt to change and achieve higher performance and a higher probability of success in each project. In addition project management brings together and optimizes the resources necessary to successfully complete the project. These resources include the skills, talents and cooperative efforts of a team of people; facilities, tools and equipment; information, systems and techniques; and money. The findings of the study suggest that the policy makers should also turn their attention to mechanisms for developing the competence in project management through training seminars and workshops. There is also a need to find multiple ways to engage the community in project work and project management. Frequent and thoughtful communication is one way, establishing support systems to train project management practitioners and overcome the large array of internal and external challenges between project implementers and community stakeholders is the other way. Dissemination of information is key to making projects socially acceptable by the different stakeholders. Institutions like Government, Non-Government Organizations and Community Based Organizations should take up project management as it is precisely what the name implies: it is a tactic for managing projects by combining strategy, goals and nuts and bolts processes into a cohesive whole. Project management is largely required during the implementation stage of projects and involves planning, organizing, decision making, directing, coordinating, controlling and monitoring and evaluating. As projects are new endeavors, they are often carried out in unfamiliar or even hostile environments and so require the use of untried designs and work processes. The purpose of project management is thus to achieve all the set out objectives in spite of the risks.