Project Management Practices And Implementation Of Government Projects In Machakos County, Kenya

ABSTRACT

Government projects have changed from a simple activity to complex integrated activities which must be smartly implemented to ensure they don’t fail on operation. Despite many project implemented by Machakos County, most of them have not been effectively and efficiently implemented, others are struggling to remain relevant and the remaining have been abandoned or failed. The raised concern in the project implementation ought to be studied and find out where the project managers in Machakos fail and especially how they practice project management. This study sought to investigate the effect of project management practices and implementation of government projects in Machakos County. The specific objectives were to establish the role of project planning, stakeholder participation, technology, monitoring and evaluation and how they influence the implementation of government projects in Machakos County Government. The study was anchored on Institutional Theory, Socio-economic Theory, and Resource-based Theory. The study employed a descriptive survey research design. A population of 128 projects implemented by the County Government of Machakos was targeted. The respondents were the project managers who were the main custodians of information of each project stratified either in county headquarters, sub-county offices or in Ward administration offices. Simple random sampling was used to come up with the sample size. The researcher instrument was questionnaire used for primary data and information collection from the population. The study found out that coefficient of correlation R was 0.857 an indication of strong positive correlation between the variables. The study found out that project planning, stakeholder participation, monitoring and evaluation and technology significantly influenced implementation of government funded projects in Machakos County. The study concludes that project planning was not practised and therefore the County executives were not able to monitor progress towards attaining the goal, still they were unable to have a communications matrix and distribute roles with clear lines of responsibility and liability to the project team. Stakeholders were not involved in the project implementation and therefore they did not assume some measure of responsibility during the system initiation. Monitoring and evaluation was practiced in the county but the project managers did not have enough tools and software’s for effective and efficient communication and feedback to the stakeholders. Minimal application of Technology resulted to poor project documentation and integration of activities in all project activities. The study recommends that the project team should establish a project plan which should be followed with aid of a project tool. The plan should specify the project goals and objective set in line with the county mission and vision statement. The project plan should further establish all resources required for the project and identify the risk and opportunities in the project. The study also recommend that the project managers should define all the project process and create communication matrix in the project planning. There is need to involved and consulted stakeholders in all stages of the project implementation by the project manager. The project ownership and sustainability by the stakeholders should be promoted. Project Monitoring and Evaluation should be carried out at least twice a month by the project manager with involvement of all key players in the project and by use of monitoring and evaluation tool. Communication, reporting and feedback on monitoring and evaluation process should be established, enabled and facilitated to all stakeholders. The study also recommend training on the project managers to gain knowledge and competency on project software applications.