South Africa faces major challenges for public service delivery to its citizens. It is crucial to monitor service delivery needs through effective governance and service administration. Local government is the key functionary of the delivery and development of transformational South Africa. The Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG) is a conditional grant to municipalities and it complements the equitable share grant for local government. South African municipalities participating in the Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG) programme are required to establish or share project management units (PMUs). The former Department of Provincial and Local Government (DPLG) issued guidelines known as MIG Guidelines (2004) for the establishment of the PMUs. The Municipal Infrastructure Investment Framework (MIIF) covers the maintenance of roads. The framework for the delivery of municipal infrastructure is based on Chapter 3, section 41 (j) of the Constitution. The purpose of this study is to explore the functioning of the PMU on the basis of the theories of project management and the MIG Guidelines, and to identify its service delivery function with regard to road maintenance. The main contribution of this study is to provide a framework and guidelines for the PMU to extend its further development with regard to the maintenance of roads. / Thesis (Master of Development and Management)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013.

The study is based on the context of project management; the discipline which employs skills and knowledge to achieve project goals through various project activities. The study concentrates on project management applications to deliver low cost houses (LCH) in the Metsimaholo Local Municipality (MLM). The main purpose of project management application is to enable project managers to track the progress of a project that they are working on. Institutions working on a very large project require project management applications to give periodic updates on the progress of the work that is being done on a project. By using a project management application, the process is made somewhat easier, in the sense that a project manager can just refer and check on the progress him/herself. Provision of adequate housing for the homeless and others who are inadequately housed in an attempt to reduce poverty and improve quality of people’s life has been a huge challenge to the South African government, particularly in the MLM over the years. Globally, legislators on the physical infrastructure of Parliament are pushing for the urgent construction of LCH by the government. The abovementioned challenge has resulted in an enormous housing backlog with poverty, unemployment, economic stagnation and negative behaviour. Financial constrains are seen to escalate costs and this makes the task even more enormous. The hypothesis for this study indicated that MLM does not possess sufficient institutional capacity to implement project management for the effective delivery of low cost housing. The hypothesis and research objectives of the study were validated by means of literature review and empirical surveys. Thirty-four (34) semi structured questionnaires were used to interview participants in the provision of LCH in MLM. The study is made up of five chapters. The study specifically focused on the application of project management to deliver LCH in the Metsimaholo Local Municipality (MLM). •This study contends that the application of project management in the public service sector to deliver goods and services has not been scientifically applied in a conscience and systematic manner. •In the MLM the national, provincial and the municipality efforts are challenged to provide houses for the homeless. •The increasing population in the MLM has resulted in an enormous housing backlog with poverty, unemployment, and economic stagnation. •The high demand for housing in the MLM brings about financial constrains and makes the task even more enormous. •It is realised through this study that the application of project management is lacking; whereby important pillars of project based outputs such as time, quality and cost are not necessarily the resultant finished products of the community tend to inherit. It is evident from the above that while the MLM has a mandate to provide service delivery it is limited by protocol to take full responsibility in the provision of low cost houses. The provision of LCH requires strengthened co-operative governance in the Free State Province, since the three spheres have important roles to play. In the face of the huge backlogs in housing and human settlement provision, the country urgently needs to develop the technical knowledge and skills necessary to fast track housing delivery. / M, Development and Management, Public Management and Administration, North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2012

This research report is a techno-economic analysis of the nuclear project management capacity in South Africa. It will focus on the project development phases of the nuclear expansion programme. The author has nuclear engineering training background and also currently involved in the Eskom new build programme (Medupi & Kusile) and the coal refurbishment projects. The following thinking philosophy is used to structure this research report: * Project management practise for nuclear projects globally * Project management practise for major Eskom projects in South Africa * The differences between South Africa and international project management practises * Guideline for project management in the nuclear environment for possible implementation of the nuclear expansion programme. The project life cycle has different phases, namely, project setup and planning phase, project design and engineering phase, and project execution phase. The first two phases were discussed and analyzed in detail. The project execution phase was also discussed, however, due to the limited time, the execution phase will not be analyzed in detail. Further research is recommended on the execution phase. At the end of this research report, a guideline for nuclear project management is developed and associated with some recommendations. This guideline can certainly assist Eskom or other potential NPP developer to understand all the critical aspects in a nuclear expansion programme. / MIng (Mechanical Engineering), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

At the heart of Project Management are time, cost and performance by utilizing the available resources. When analysing the Global Competitiveness index for 2012-2013 it becomes clear that in South Africa labour efficiency is far below what it should be, ranked 113th out of 144. In the same report Business Sophistication is ranked 38th out of 144. It becomes clear that performance, time and cost at the heart of Project Management are hampered by the low labour efficiency. The adoption of Information Communication Technology (ICT) in the Construction Project Management Environment will raise productivity and will increase the quality and speed of work, financial controls, communication, and access to common data. The effect will be improved communication, an increase in the speed of data transmission, cost savings and fewer occurrences in miscommunication. The study has been done to set a framework of how ITC can be managed and implemented in the South African Construction Project Management Environment. These enablers and disablers of ICT in Construction Project Management should be determined. The current rate of ICT adoption is verified and the future trends in ICT are researched, characteristics common to quality information should also be verified. The study determined that the future developments in ITC will be profound and if applied correctly, Project Management through the means of communication will be affected positively. In the empirical study the characteristics of quality information, the disablers and also the enablers were investigated taking into account the current rate of ICT adoption in the South African Construction Management Environment. The framework used in the study proposed and confirmed how ITC can be managed and implemented in the South African Construction Project Management Environment. It is set out in the following steps: Firstly: By determining the common characteristics of quality information, namely accuracy, completeness, consistency, uniqueness, and timeliness. The implementation of ITC in the Construction Project Management Environment can be controlled. Secondly: Disablers of ICT adoption in project management exist, namely economic factors (reduction in employment, rising cost, and limited trade), social factors (digital divide, security and lack of education), and other factors (legal, environmental and cognitive). These factors should be managed. Thirdly: Enablers of ICT adoption in project management exist, namely relative advantage, complexity, compatibility, trial ability and observe ability. These enablers must be focused on and exploited where possible. Fourthly: Determine the current rate of ICT adoption in Construction Project Management. This was done and it is clear that the digital divide has been crossed by South African Project Managers and that they will embrace future developments in ICT in general. Finally: Future trends in ICT for the next five to ten years pertaining to Project Management should be analysed and new trends with possible advantages for Project Management must be investigated on a constant basis to see what will be advantageous. / Thesis (MBA)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013.

South Africa faces major challenges for public service delivery to its citizens. It is crucial to monitor service delivery needs through effective governance and service administration. Local government is the key functionary of the delivery and development of transformational South Africa. The Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG) is a conditional grant to municipalities and it complements the equitable share grant for local government. South African municipalities participating in the Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG) programme are required to establish or share project management units (PMUs). The former Department of Provincial and Local Government (DPLG) issued guidelines known as MIG Guidelines (2004) for the establishment of the PMUs. The Municipal Infrastructure Investment Framework (MIIF) covers the maintenance of roads. The framework for the delivery of municipal infrastructure is based on Chapter 3, section 41 (j) of the Constitution. The purpose of this study is to explore the functioning of the PMU on the basis of the theories of project management and the MIG Guidelines, and to identify its service delivery function with regard to road maintenance. The main contribution of this study is to provide a framework and guidelines for the PMU to extend its further development with regard to the maintenance of roads. / Thesis (Master of Development and Management)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013.

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) projects, a type of complex information technology project, are very challenging and expensive to implement. Past research recognizes that escalation, defined as the commitment to a failing course of action, is common in such projects. While the factors that contribute to escalation (e.g., project conditions, psychological, organizational, and social factors) have been extensively examined, the literature on deescalation of projects is very limited. Motivated by this gap in the literature, this research examines deescalation, that is, on breaking the commitment to the failing course of action with a particular focus on ERP projects. This study is organized as a single-case study of a complex ERP project that was undertaken after a merger of two organizations. It examines how the project team members’ sensemaking is implicated in deescalation. Applying sensemaking as a theoretical lens, this engaged scholarship research contributes to practice by providing recommendations on how to better manage ERP project deescalation. It contributes to theory by providing a nuanced understanding of ERP project deescalation through project team members’ sensemaking activities.

No description available.

In recent yerars there has been a general concern over the performance of the UK construction industry. This has been reflected in the reports of Latham (1994) and Egan (1998) stating that the UK is still suffering from underachievements and low productivity. Clients critisise the industry for not always achieving what they need and the majortiy of them are not satisfied with the quality of the construction industry. Many of the problems encountered in the design and construction phases orginate from from the pre-project planning phase. The main problems are frequently attributed to poor planning and poor identification of client needs which act as contributory factors to poor project performance. These problems have led to the need for a change in the construction industry by focusing on the roots of the problems attributed to poor performance. One approach that could help to improve construction performance is to pay more attention to the pre-project planning phase since major decisions concerning the project are made during this phase. The main aim of the research is to develop a framework for improving pre-project planning to enable construction clients overcome the problems that they encounter with other project participants. Such a framework would assisst construction clients to identify and communicate their needs more clearly to other stake holders. The framework provides a comprehensive tool to help solve problems that occur during pre-project planning with respect to project objectives and goals of the construction project to enable performance to be measured and improved. This thesis presents a framework for improving pre-project planning of construction projects. The methodology adopted to conduct the research involved a comprehensive literature review. Critical pre-project planning functions have been presented and tested through the questionnaire survey and case interviews to determine how clients perform pre-project planning

This dissertation presents a study on project management and its effectiveness in a multinational pharmaceutical company (MPC). A mixed qualitative-quantitative method consisting of a case study (33 managers) and a follow-up survey (122 employees) was conducted. The cybernetics theory and its related concepts were used to formulate the social and technical components of projects as a network of task-related social interactions within an organizational context. Interaction was defined as the variety or possible states one node generates for another node, while degree of coordination was defined as the extent to which a recipient node can handle the variety of interrelated nodes. Interaction Effectiveness (IE) was calculated based on the ratio of “helpful” to “not so helpful” behaviors between interrelated nodes. MPC’s average organizational IE ratio of 1.03 was used as a baseline to determine the relative effectiveness of different interactions. The IE ratio also revealed two structural network properties. First, a departmental-level analysis indicated that most network relationships were asymmetrical (76.5%), reflecting a significant discrepancy in perceptions between interrelated nodes. Second, the variability of IE ratios (standard deviation) ranged from 0.10 to 1.28, reflecting the degree of consistency among the relationships of each single node and its interrelated nodes. The results of a multiple regression analysis indicated a significant relationship between the perceived ranking of a node’s performance and the node’s IE ratio. Multiple regression analysis also indicated a significant relationship between the perceived ranking of a node’s importance and the total of that node’s helpful and not so helpful comments. Finally, the results showed that the IE ratio was almost double for employees’ positive working relationship links compared to links with which they reported negative working relationships. The qualitative findings also provide significant evidence of the method’s sensitivity to capture project management’s most crucial element of “time.” Categorizing the impact of not so helpful comments corresponded mostly to “delays” (68.87%), whereas the impact of helpful comments corresponded mostly to “saving time” (68.14%). Furthermore, categorizing decisions to handle variety revealed the dominance of “adhocracy” mechanisms (62.18%) to handle input variety as opposed to “procedural” variety handling mechanisms (20.63%). Categorizing the comments related to the not so helpful category of “unreasonable expectations” indicated that 51.4% of all comments pertained to “role overload” followed by “role conflict” (36.5%), with only 12.1% of all comments corresponding to “role ambiguity.” The quantitative follow-up survey’s primary objective was to test the research hypotheses regarding the relationship between “variety”-related concepts and different degrees of project complexity (complex versus simple). The survey supported all hypotheses except Hypothesis 7 regarding project management software. Results, limitations, potential improvements to the current study, and future research directions are discussed.

Automated construction progress tracking is becoming critical to efficient and effective construction management. More and more construction companies are putting aside the old way of tracking progress, which was mainly based on foremen daily reports and visual inspections, and are adopting 3D sensing technologies as a new and modern way of tracking progress. Technologies such as 3D laser scanners (LADARs) are investigated as a means to acquire comprehensive 3D point-cloud data which can then be studied by management to determine the progress of construction. Although being much more accurate and efficient than visual inspections, this new progress tracking approach can be improved by applying object recognition algorithms that enable an automated progress tracking. This new approach has been investigated by other researchers, but only for progress tracking of structural elements. This study focuses on mechanical objects such as pipes and ducts, which would give the progress tracking a better level of detail and a wider scope. The investigation is carried out on a field database acquired during the construction of the Engineering VI Building at the University of Waterloo. It was found that the laser scanning technology is a suitable method for acquiring point-clouds of pipes and ductwork, and also that the object recognition algorithm used in this study allows a progress tracking as well as a quality tracking of the HVAC system installation.