LV Thạc sỹ_Improving project management at the center of women and development

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING Lờ đ2la23la3 NATIONAL ECONOMICS UNIVERSITY h NEU BUSINESS SCHOOL NGUYEN THI NHU QUYNH IMPROVING PROJECT MANAGEMENT AT THE CENTER OF WOMEN AND DEVELOPMENT MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION THESIS 60.34.05 HANOI - 2010 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING NATIONAL ECONOMICS UNIVERSITY NEU BUSINESS SCHOOL NGUYEN THI NHU QUYNH… IMPROVING PROJECT MANAGEMENT AT THE CENTER OF WOMEN AND DEVELOPMENT MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION THESIS 60.34.05 SUPERVISOR: Dr PHAM KHAC DUNG… ACKNOWLEDGEMENT First of all, I wish to extend my gratitude to Dr Pham Khac Dung, my supervisor, for his time and commitment to my completion thesis, for his understanding and relevant advice on all aspect of the thesis I also extend my sincere thanks to my family for the financial and encouragement and endless support I would also thank to my former colleagues at The Center Women and Development for their support to collect information and data, and for providing valuable information to the study I would like to express my thanks to all my colleagues at Concetti who made my work schedule very comfortable in order to create good conditions for study… I sincerely thank all the teachers, coordinators of NEU Business School for providing guidance and logistic support to complete the study TABLE OF CONTENTS ABBREVIATION 56 LIST OF FIGURES 67 LIST OF TABLES 78 LIST OF TABLES 78 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .89 CHAPTER 1011 INTRODUCTION .1011 1.1 Rationale 1011 1.2 Research Problem 1011 1.3 Research Objectives 1112 1.4 Research Questions 1112 1.5 Research Methodology 1213 1.5.1 Research process 1213 1.5.2 Collecting secondary data 1314 1.5.3 Collecting primary data 1314 1.6 Research Scope 1516 1.7 Thesis Outline 1617 CHAPTER 1718 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND OF PROJECT 1718 AND PROJECT MANAGEMENT .1718 2.1 Project 1718 2.1.1 Project Definition and Characteristics 1718 2.1.2 Project Types 1920 2.1.3 The Project Life Cycle 2425 2.2 Project Management 2728 2.2.1 Project Management 2728 2.2.2 Characteristic of Project Development and Management of Project Development .3031 2.2.3 Influencing factors of Project Management .3132 CHAPTER 3940 CURRENT SITUATION OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT AT CWD .3940 3.1 The Centre for Women and Development 3940 3.2 Project Management Performance at CWD .4142 3.2.1 CWD’s Project Details and Project Success Conditions 4142 3.2.2 Project Management Performance .4445 3.3 Influencing Factors of Project Management Performance at CWD 4546 3.3.1 Impact of “Operation” on project management 5253 3.3.2 Impact of “Organization” on project management .5758 3.3.3 Impact of “Personnel” on project management 5858 3.3.4 Impact of “Plan” on Project Management 6060 3.4 Achievement and Shortcoming of Project Management at CWD .6162 CHAPTER 6364 RECOMMENDATION TO IMPROVE PROJECT MANAGEMENT 6364 4.1 Strategic Orientation of CWD up to 2015 6364 4.2 Research Recommendations to the Center of Women and Development 6465 4.2.1 Building High-performance Project Team 6465 4.2.2 Developing Operation Activities 6869 4.2.3 Improving Project Plan Process 7273 4.2.4 Establishing and Maintaining Project Management Processes 7475 4.3 Recommendations to Vietnamese NGO 7576 REFERENCES 7677 APPENDIX 2: RESEARCH QUESTIONNAIRE 7980 APPENDIX 3: RESULT OF QUESTIONNAIRE 8182 DESCRIPTIVE STATISTIC .8182 APPENDIX 4: LIST OF ORGANIZATIONS PARTICIPATING .8687 IN THE INTERVIEW 8687 ABBREVIATION AWP Annual Working Plan CWD The Center of Women and Development NGO Non-Governance Organization ODA Official Development Assistance PMU Project Management Unit SPSS Statistical Package for Social Science TOR Term Of Reference VNGO Vietnamese Non-Governance Organization LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1: The research process 1213 Figure 2.1: The Morris’ project life span .2526 Figure 2.2: The project life cycle 2627 Figure 2.3: The project management activities 2930 Figure 3.1: Centre for Women and Development’s organizational structure 4041 Figure 3.2: Assessment project management performance at CWD 4748 Figure 3.3: Relationship between major components and project management 5252 Figure 3.4: The process of recruitment project personnel 5959 Figure 4.1: Influencing a project team’s performance 6768 Figure 4.2: Develop contingency plan process 7273 LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1: The characteristics of each type of project 2223 Table 3.1: Relation between project management performance and influencing factors 4646 Table 3.2: KMO and Bartlett's Test .4849 Table 3.3: Total variance explained .4849 Table 3.4: Rotated component matrix 4950 Table 3.5: The first factor influencing project management .5050 Table 3.6: The second factor influencing project management 5051 Table 3.7: The third factor influencing project management 5051 Table 3.8: The fourth factor influencing project management 5152 Table 3.9: Comparing estimated budget and real budget 5555 Table 3.10: Promoting and reducing elements of project management 6263 Table 4.1: Project stakeholders and communication information .6970 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY As project approach has long been the style of doing business, project management is spreading to all avenues of work1, in particular in non-governance organization which is commonly driven by projects Being one of leading organizations to protect women human right in Vietnam, and as most of Vietnamese non-governance organizations, the Center of Women and Development (CWD) has its activities driven by five to six projects with total value of over million dollars every year However, CWD’s project managers and other project personnel face several challenges For example, a number of projects has been completed late or over budgeted, some overrun on time, project personnel lacks of information of project objectives, status, which leads to low CWD’s directors, personnel, and customer’s satisfaction From this point, the thesis attempts to improve project management performance at CWD by improving major influencing components of project management performance The following objectives will be achieved in the study, including: Current situation of project management performance CWD; Factors which influence project management performance at CWD; and Recommendation to improve CWD’s project management performance This study is the combination of qualitative and quantitative method in which data has been collected through interviews, group discussion, and survey focusing on how project management is going and what we should to improve project management Information collected from literature review, depth-interview and group discussion has been important input to design questionnaire in order to find out and assess influencing factors on project management performance at CWD By using SPSS for data processing from 35 valid questionnaire, fourth major influencing components of project management performance at CWD was found out, labeled Operation, Organization, Personnel, and Plan, involves 12 subfactors: “motivated project personnel”, “identify and manage risk”, “comfortable working environment”, “micro management”, “contingency”, “filed project documentation”, “supportive organizational structure”, “good managerial processes”, “well-known project objectives”, C Gray and E W Larson (2006), Project Management: The Managerial Process, Mc Graw-Hill International Edition, p.3 10 “proper planning”, “education and experience project personnel”, and “stable project personnel” In detailed, the findings show that Uncomfortable working atmosphere and poor motivation have negative influencing on effectiveness of project management at CW; Too much micro and too little macro-management by Project director and project manager; Cost establish for implementing activities has not been taken carefully into account, which have caused to; CWD does not have adequate policies and procedure for implementing and managing project CWD also does not have standard methods for controlling and measuring its project performance; Project plans have been developed majority based on experienced not on close foundations Therefore, project plans are inadequate and ineffective; Project plans have been developed majority based on experienced not on close foundations; and therefore, project plans are inadequate and ineffective The thesis gives an inside look at project management performance and expects what is going to change to improve project management at CWD in particular and Vietnamese Nongovernance Organization/ Non-profit Organization in general Based on findings, the study identifies solutions to improve project management performance at CWD The recommendations include: Improve leadership role of project managers (communicate a vision, motivate and inspire project team, build trust within the project team, influence stakeholders, and manage and resolve conflict), Building successful project team, Developing effective communication system in order to help project personnel get clearly project goal and objectives, coordinate other team members, discover and solve problems, Complete project risk management (consist develop a plan, and establish project contingence), Improving project plan process more adequate and effective, and Identify and document applicable processes; Develop process maps; Identify process participants; Communication processes to stakeholders and Develop and conduct process training to maintain project management process 72 For each of project, CWD must prepare a contingency plan, which is strategic plan and will be executed if the risk happens The contingence for each project should be established based on acceptable risk, and results from risk analyses should be used to define contingency amount During implementation of project, risk list and contingency should be reviewed and adjusted To establish a reasonable contingency budget, four following steps should be considered: Figure 4.2: Develop contingency plan process STEP Identify all risks Estimate the additional cost of resolving risk and the STEP probability for each of risk The expected value of contingency = Cost of contingency X Probalibility of risk event STEP Sum the expected value of contingency for each of identified risk, which is contingency budget of project STEP Negotiation contingency budget with the donor or customers 4.2.3 Improving Project Plan Process Because of strong relationship between high-performance of project management and performance of project plan (as above-mentioned), it is important to improving development project plan process, which leads to reach adequate and effective project plan There are several reasons for CWD to develop project plan carefully before starting a project:  The plan is chance for discussing each person’s role and responsibilities, thereby helping direct and control the work of the project  The plan shows how the parts fit together, which is essential for co-ordinating related activities 73  The plan helps project personnel know when the objectives have been reached When developing project plan, the following elements should be included in a good project plan: Statement of the project goal; Cost/benefit analysis; Listing of the major steps to be taken; Time-frame for completion; and Description of the resource required to carry out the project A simple practical approach is developed by Duncan Haughey can be approached to project planning: Step 1: - Identify project stakeholder in CWD projects It is not easy to identify stakeholder of project, however CWD project stakeholder Project goal usually include: project donor, beneficiaries, project manager and project team - Establish the stakeholders’ needs The best way to identify stakeholders’ needs is conducted stakeholder interviews Record and set priority their needs - Established a clear set of goals which should be recorded in the project plan Step 2: - get those goals Project activities/tasks Create s list of things the project needs to carry out in order to - Add those deliverables to the project plan with an estimated activities/task date Step 3: - (identified in step 2) includes resource to complete them Project schedule Step 4: Create s list of task that need to be carried out for each activities/task - Human resource plan: individuals or department with a leading role in the project; Number and type of people needed to carry Supporting plan out the project - Communication plan: Who/department need to be kept inform about project and how they receive/provide information - Risk management plan: Identify risks to project and prepare if something bad happens A project plan is not a one-time developed, it must be updated throughout the project What the managers want to have in project plan is project aims, outputs, resources, management 74 structure, quality criteria, risk, schedule, etc It is useful to have project stakeholders into the project planning process, which will help to complete and update the project plans 4.2.4 Establishing and Maintaining Project Management Processes According to Robert Cooper (2005), Process is understood as a conceptual and operational road map for carry out a project activity from idea to end In other words, process is a blueprint for managing project activity to improve effectiveness and efficiency Therefore, using process in project management helps manager: - To clearly and explicitly defines the objectives and scope of activity of project - To develop overall and detailed schedule of activity and resource required to carry out the whole activity - To defines relevant department/people which can be joined to manage and carry out the necessary work The major steps required to establish and maintain project management processes are Identify and document applicable processes; Develop process maps; Identify process participants; Communication processes to stakeholders and Develop and conduct process training Establishing and maintaining project management processes is responsibility of departments or business unit functions joining in implementing project Some of the project management processes should be developed and practiced at CWD are listed bellow: - Initiating process: Defines or authorizes the project or a project phase - Planning process: Defines necessary step to make plan - Executing process: Integrates people and other resource to carry out the activity of the project - Monitoring and controlling process: Identify variances from implementation project so that corrective action can be taken when necessary to meet activity objective in particular and project objective in general Closing process: Identify acceptance standard of the product, service or result and brings projects to successful end 75 4.3 Recommendations to Vietnamese NGO Project management has been becoming necessary skill for Vietnamese NGOs not only to complete the project but also to achieve the organization strategy goals In recent year, project management performance has become competitive advantage to attract limited funding From project management practice at CWD, along with the similarities in project implementation and management between CWD and other NGOs, some recommendations are provided to improve project management performance as following detailed: - Vietnamese NGOs not have many choices of project personnel because of small scale and limited resource Therefore, it is necessary for project leaders to create clearly picture of project goal and objectives and define role of each project personnel during implementing project The project leaders are also responsibility to point out to project members how they can contribute to project success Listening, creating friendly environment and using suitable rewards to encourage project members complete their roles - Projects, which have been done by VNGOs, are small scale and less effected by economic, political or environmental risks, which are reasons why project manager don’t have risk management plan However it has its own risks such as inexperience project manager, poor commitment of the authorities, difficult to access quality professions, etc Therefore, develop risk management framework is necessary and should be considered as an important content of project management activities - As CWD, most of VNGOs don’t have document as policy, process to define, guide, or control project implementation The result of lacking policy and process was poor project management performance It is important for VNGOs to establish and maintain project process and policy Project members have to understand and take it in practice Improving project management is useful management tool which can be used to achieve its targets In competitive market and Vietnamese environment, Vietnamese NGOs can be seen to be competing with one another for funding 76 REFERENCES Clifford Gray and Erik Larson, 2006, Project management: The Managerial Process International Edition Center for Women and Development, 2008, Report on Implementation 2007 Master Plan Center for Women and Development, 2006, Report on Development Strategy up to 2010 Center for Women and Development, 2009, Documentation of “Protection of women’s right and prevention of domestic violence against women” project Chartered Institute of Building, 1996, Code of Practice for Project Management for Construction and Development, Second Edition, England Cotterall, 1995, Factor Analysis with SPSS Eric Verzuh, 2008, The Portable MBA in Project Management, John Wiley & Sons, Inc J Foster, 1998, Data Analysis using SPSS for Windows, London: SAGE Publications Ltd Gary Walker, 1995, Critical Success Factor of Project Management 10 Gerbing & Anderson, 1998, An Update Paradigm for Scale Development Incorporing Unidimensionality and Its Assessments, Vol.25 11 Hair and etg, 1998, Multivariate Data Analysis, Prentice-Hall International, Inc 12 H.G Gemuenden and T Lechler, 1992, Study success factors of project management 13 Karl L Wuensch, 2009, Factor Analysis with SPSS 14 PMBOK Guide, 2005, 3rd Edition, Project Management Institute Inc 15 Project Management Institute, 2004, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, 3rd Edition 16 Robert G Cooper and E Kleinschmidt, 1991, Formal Processes for Managing New Products: The Industry Experience, McMaster University 77 17 R Max Wideman, 2001, Toward a Fundamental Differentiation between Project Types, Vancouver, BC, Canada 18 Youker, 1989, Managing the project cycle for time, cost and quality: lessons from World Bank experience, Keynote paper 19 Wideman, 1997, Project management framework lecture overhead slide circa 20 Wideman, 1998, Dominant personality traits suited to running project successfully, Project Management Institute, California, USA 78 APPENDIX 1: RESEARCH INTERVIEW QUESTIONS You are kindly requested to answer the questions below and to provide information as detailed as possible This questionnaire asks your opinions and your experiences about managing project, particularly managing project in Vietnamese Non-government Organization It will take about 15 minutes to complete You have not to write your name anywhere on the questionnaire and your name will not be attached in any way to the responses you give Please answer every question I appreciate your cooperation, and your time to complete the questionnaire How is your assessment of project management performance at Vietnamese NonGovernance Organization (NGO)/CWD in term of cost, schedule and quality? What factors you think influence on high-performance of project management in Vietnamese NGO/CWD? What are the main causes for poor-performance/high-performance of project management in Vietnamese NGO/CWD? How to improve performance of project management in Vietnamese NGO/CWD? 79 APPENDIX 2: RESEARCH QUESTIONNAIRE You are kindly requested to answer the questions below and to provide information as detailed as possible This questionnaire asks your opinions and your experiences about managing project It will take about 15 minutes to complete You have not to write your name anywhere on the questionnaire and your name will not be attached in any way to the responses you give Please answer every question, and please choose only one answer per question I appreciate your cooperation, and your time to complete the questionnaire Answer each question by localizing your chose Of which: = Very poor = Poor = Fair = Good = Excellent = Don’t know By being as project personnel, please rate the effectiveness of project management in each of following factors I Organization personnel CWD organizational structure Good working atmosphere Financial and psychological rewards Experience and education project personnel Stabilization of project personnel 6 II Risk management Risk identification and management 80 Budget for risk management Understanding project goal and objectives Performance of project plan Leadership style of project manager Managerial policies and procedure Project document filed Project management performance III Project manager characteristics IV Policies, procedure and documentation Individual General Information Education: High School College/University Master/Ph.D Position in project Guard House keeper Social worker Project (support) office Project manager Project consultant Project account How long have you worked as CWD’s project personnel? Less than months From to 12 months More than 12 months 81 APPENDIX 3: RESULT OF QUESTIONNAIRE DESCRIPTIVE STATISTIC Frequency Table Education Frequency Valid Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent high school 14.3 14.3 14.3 college/univ ersity 16 45.7 45.7 60.0 master/PhD 14 40.0 40.0 100.0 Total 35 100.0 100.0 Experience year Frequency Valid Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent from to 12 months 17 48.6 48.6 48.6 more than 12 months 18 51.4 51.4 100.0 Total 35 100.0 100.0 Position Frequency Valid Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Guard 11.4 11.4 11.4 House keeper 8.6 8.6 20.0 Social worker 20.0 20.0 40.0 10 28.6 28.6 68.6 8.6 8.6 77.1 Project (support) office project 82 manager project consultant 14.3 14.3 91.4 project account 8.6 8.6 100.0 35 100.0 100.0 Total Project management performance Frequency Valid Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent poor 14.3 14.3 14.3 fair 13 37.1 37.1 51.4 good 17 48.6 48.6 100.0 Total 35 100.0 100.0 CWD support organizational structure Frequency Valid Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent poor 2.9 2.9 2.9 fair 22.9 22.9 25.7 24 68.6 68.6 94.3 5.7 5.7 100.0 35 100.0 100.0 good exellent Total Good working atmosphere Frequency Valid Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent poor 19 54.3 54.3 54.3 fair 11 31.4 31.4 85.7 good 14.3 14.3 100.0 Total 35 100.0 100.0 83 Financial and psychological rewards Frequency Valid Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent poor 19 54.3 54.3 54.3 fair 13 37.1 37.1 91.4 good 5.7 5.7 97.1 exellent 2.9 2.9 100.0 35 100.0 100.0 Total Experience and education project personnel Frequency Valid fair Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent 5.7 5.7 5.7 good 18 51.4 51.4 57.1 exellent 15 42.9 42.9 100.0 Total 35 100.0 100.0 Stabilization of project personnel Frequency Valid Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent poor 21 60.0 60.0 60.0 fair 14 40.0 40.0 100.0 Total 35 100.0 100.0 Risk identification and management Frequency Valid Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent very poor 5.7 5.7 5.7 poor 14.3 14.3 20.0 fair 17 48.6 48.6 68.6 good 22.9 22.9 91.4 exellent 8.6 8.6 100.0 35 100.0 100.0 Total 84 Budget for risk management Frequency Valid Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent very poor 8.6 8.6 8.6 poor 11.4 11.4 20.0 fair 12 34.3 34.3 54.3 good 12 34.3 34.3 88.6 11.4 11.4 100.0 35 100.0 100.0 exellent Total Understanding project goal and objectives Frequency Valid Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent poor 8.6 8.6 8.6 fair 18 51.4 51.4 60.0 good 13 37.1 37.1 97.1 2.9 2.9 100.0 35 100.0 100.0 exellent Total Performance of project plan Frequency Valid Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent poor 11 31.4 31.4 31.4 fair 15 42.9 42.9 74.3 good 22.9 22.9 97.1 exellent 2.9 2.9 100.0 35 100.0 100.0 Total Project manager leadership Frequency Valid Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent poor 16 45.7 45.7 45.7 fair 22.9 22.9 68.6 85 good 10 28.6 28.6 97.1 2.9 2.9 100.0 35 100.0 100.0 exellent Total Managerial policies and procedure Frequency Valid Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent poor 11.4 11.4 11.4 fair 19 54.3 54.3 65.7 good 12 34.3 34.3 100.0 Total 35 100.0 100.0 Project document filed Frequency Valid Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent poor 20.0 20.0 20.0 fair 25 71.4 71.4 91.4 good 8.6 8.6 100.0 Total 35 100.0 100.0 86 APPENDIX 4: LIST OF ORGANIZATIONS PARTICIPATING IN THE INTERVIEW No Name of VNGO Director Contact Center for Education Promotion and Empowerment of Women Dr Vuong Thi Hanh No 113 Trung Tu, Hanoi cepew@vnn.vn Vietnamese Community Mobilization Center for HIV/AIDS Control Nguyen Thi Hoang Oanh (Vice-director) No 19 Dinh Cong New Urban, Hanoi vicomc@viettel.vn Center For Non-formal Education and Community Development of Vietnam Nguyen Thi Van P109, 187 Giang Vo street, Hanoi ucnevl@gmail.com The Legal Assistance Center Duong Thanh Mai No Nguyen Thuong Hien, Hanoi lacvietnam@gmail.com Center For Sustainable Rural Vu Thi Bich Hop Development No.6 Le Van Huu, Hanoi infor@srd.org.vn ... current situation of project management at CWD? What are the factors that influence project management performance at CWD? How to improving project management at The Centre of Women and Development? ... implementation of project management at the Centre for Women and Development Information and database were gathered from multiple sources and analyzed by SPSS software The validity and reliability of database... this study mainly used qualitative and quantitative method to describe and analyze the development and implementation of project management at the Centre for Women and Development During research