The Effect of Project Management Practice on Project Success on Selected Public Projects Found In Jimma Town, Ethiopia

Abstract

Applying project management tools and techniques in public institutions has become an important issue in many developing countries. However, Implementation delay, overestimation of project return and poor manpower quality of projects were found to be statistically significant cause of project failures to meet their objectives. To examine the effect of project management practice on project success on selected public projects found in Jimma town, Ethiopia and specifically intended to examine the effect of project planning, project execution, monitoring and controlling of projects on project success on selected public projects found in Jimma town. The study used stratified simple random sampling techniques in order to study the effect of Project management practice on Project success using total sample size of 155 of selected public projects. The collected data were collected with questionnaires, coded and interred into the SPSS computer software for analysis. The data were analyzed with descriptive and inferential statistics such as ANOVA, Pearson correlation and the Multiple Regression Analysis Model. The result show that 115(77.18%) of the respondents were male while 34(21.1%) of the respondents were females, in which 129(86%) of the respondents’ responded their sector have adequate and comprehensive project management. The results of Pearson correlation revealed that project initiation & planning was positively and significantly associated with project success (r =0.735, ρ<0.01). Further, project execution process was positively and significantly correlated to project success (r = 0.659, ρ<0.01). Moreover, monitoring & controlling was positively and strongly correlated with project success (r = 0.747, ρ<0.01) and also there is a positive correlation between project closure & project success (r = 0.348, ρ<0.01). The study suggests the introduction of effective monitoring tools; training of staff on use of monitoring tools; use of effective communication and improved reporting and documentation in order to improve the monitoring and control process.