This study uses information gleaned from a sample of 102 public sector project managers to assess the interrelationships among project manager roles, responsibilities, and competencies in the planning and implementation stages of the project life cycle. The results of confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling revealed that project managers use different subsets of their skills to influence outcomes at these two stages of the project. For example, while the project manager's organizational and technical skills tend to have some influence during the project planning stage, managerial, leadership and people skills appear to have more influence during the project implementation stage. Implications of these and our other findings for the practice of project management in public sector organizations are discussed.

The public sector project is particularly a demanding undertaking, with the requirement to meet diverse demands. Despite huge investment, public sector projects tend to complete behind schedule, indicating shortfall in various project factors. This research was grounded on an empirical study of the Malaysian School Computer Laboratory Programme (SCLP) to examine the project success factors throughout the project life span. The extensive SCLP was divided into six zones, spanning urban and remote environment throughout Malaysia. Its implementation was staggered into several phases, two of which covered in this study, namely phase-1 and phase-2. This research aimed to fulfil three research objectives: i) to discover the project management’s success factors; ii) to determine the product’s success factors that encompass various stakeholders; and iii) to identify project characteristics that influenced the project success. A comprehensive review of literature suggested 20 relevant project success factors to be investigated. Those factors were examined using a newly constructed framework, whereby the project life span was clustered into two segments – project process and project product. The study adopted a qualitative paradigm; nevertheless it utilised both qualitative and quantitative approaches of data collection, which were triangulated to provide a wider scope of interpretation. The quantitative data for a total sample of 357 projects were sourced from Likert-type questionnaire and secondary resources, while qualitative data were sourced from combination of semi-structured interviews with 38 respondents representing 10 groups of project stakeholders and secondary data from various documents. The results demonstrated that the project management of the SCLP was improperly administered. Out of five success factors investigated to verify the project conceptualization, only two namely project goal and project scope, were reasonably defined. One factor, stakeholder participation, was inadequately defined, while the other two factors, resources assessment and risk management, were not even taken into consideration by the project decision-making committee. There were also some deficiencies in the project planning. From six success factors tested, two were acceptably planned, i.e. project design and project costing. The other four, namely distribution of authority and responsibility, contractor selection, project scheduling, and project documentation, were insufficiently planned. The inadequacies in the project definition and project planning were reflected in the project execution as only two out of six factors, i.e. administrator effectiveness and communication, contributed to the project success. The other four, known as supervising team efficiency, contractor competence, integrity and external influences were negatively affected the project. Despite some deficiencies in the project management, the outcome or product of the project was found to be successful particularly in the judgement of the target group, the users; they were satisfied with the SCLP deliverables. They also appreciated the benefit from the utilisation of the products, which greatly changed the approaches of teaching and learning. However, the SCLP completion time was not as successful as planned, believed to be a result of unrealistic scheduling during the planning stage. Nonetheless, there were cases of genuine delays due to various factors in the earlier stages. The results also suggested that some of the project success factors were particularly influenced by project characteristics explored in this studied. The influences of these two characteristics, geographical zone and the project award method, could be seen in both the project management process and the project’s product. Overall, this thesis contributed to extant body of knowledge in various ways. A newly constructed research framework, with the concept of duality of project process and product, added depth to the longstanding idea of project success and expanded premises of the existing theory. This framework offered a better platform to identify when particular factors take place and affect the project along the project life span. This study also added a new insight to the Malaysian public sector projects management strategies in particular and to the other countries with the similar situations in general. A new paradigm in project decision-making by adopting a bottom-up concept rather than traditionally top-down alone during the project conceptualisation and a more realistic resource-based approach during the project planning, is suggested. In addition, this research proposed an ideal way to deal with various critical success factors in a huge programme.

Submitted by Nadir Basilio (nadirsb@uninove.br) on 2017-04-04T15:30:23Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Jose B Damasceno Junior.pdf: 1891815 bytes, checksum: 03363a3789637e84b97afceb57e7fcb7 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-04-04T15:30:23Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Jose B Damasceno Junior.pdf: 1891815 bytes, checksum: 03363a3789637e84b97afceb57e7fcb7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-02-26 / The subject lessons learned in projects has been more and more relevant nowadays, considering the adoption on institutions and a growing number of academic researches. Models for lessons learned management have been developed, supported by processes and tools such as social software (eg, Wikis, Blogs, Microblogging ...). Considering the software adoption problem or the lack of processes and tools for managing lessons learned in institutions and carrying on Rose’s research project (2015) whom developed a model for management of lessons learned, the Target 2.0, this study’s main objective is to validate such a model in action on a public safety government institution. A Wiki page has been developed to promote the management of lessons learned in a project at this institution. This work was developed based on the Design Science Research (DSR) paradigm and the Technical Action Research (TAR) method. The results suggests increments to the validated artifact on the lessons learned list of processes during the phases of the project’s life cycle, while the usefulness and ease of use of the Wiki were recognized by those involved they also pointed to the positive effect on the efficiency and effectiveness of the processes and project activities. This research presents itself as unique and useful. The uniqueness is because the Target 2.0 had not yet been validated on the field, so it is unprecedented. Its usefulness is shown by the fact that the public safety government institution will make use of this Wiki in the upcoming issues of the Quality Award project. The contribution to the theory happens as it is confirmed that investing into the adoption of tools and techniques is essential, and that it is also possible to innovate in the Brazilian’s public safety sector by using good practices, that keeping people aligned is fundamental to the lessons learned management in projects. It shows that: 1. the implementation phase of the project life cycle allows for a greater collection of lessons learned; 2. the perception of the existence of new tools can promote greater social collaboration of information about projects; and 3. beyond the importance of raising awareness, a lessons learned policy is needed. The practical contribution lies on the adoption of a model of lessons learned management in projects, which was pioneered in that institution. / Cada vez mais o tema lições aprendidas em projetos vem se fazendo presente, haja vista a sua abordagem nas instituições e a crescente produção de pesquisas acadêmicas. Modelos para gestão de lições aprendidas vêm sendo desenvolvidos, apoiados em processos e ferramentas como os softwares sociais (e.g. Wikis, Blogues, Microblogues...). Considerando o problema do desuso ou desconhecimento de processos e ferramentas para a gestão de lições aprendidas em instituições, e dando continuidade ao projeto de pesquisa de Rosa (2015), que desenvolveu um modelo Target para gestão de lições aprendidas, este trabalho tem como objetivo principal validar tal modelo na prática em uma instituição governamental de segurança pública. Uma página Wiki foi desenvolvida para promover a gestão de lições aprendidas em um projeto nesta instituição. Este trabalho foi desenvolvido baseado no paradigma de pesquisa Design Science Research (DSR) e no método de pesquisa Technical Action Research (TAR). Os resultados sugerem incrementos ao artefato validado nos processos de liçoes aprendidas por fase do ciclo de vida do projeto, enquanto a utilidade e facilidade no uso da Wiki foram reconhecidos pelos envolvidos que, também, consideram haver efeito positivo na eficácia nos processos e atividades do projeto. Este trabalho de pesquisa se apresenta como original e útil. A originalidade se caracteriza pelo fato que o Target não havia sido ainda validado na prática, portanto, inédito. Já a sua utilidade se comprova pelo fato que a instituição governamental de segurança pública fará uso da Wiki nas próximas edições do projeto no qual o Target foi validado. A contribuição para a teoria ocorre à medida que se confirma que investir na adoção de técnicas e ferramentas em projetos é fundamental, que é possível inovar na segurança pública brasileira por meio das boas práticas de projetos, que o alinhamento das pessoas é fundamental para a gestão de lições aprendidas em projetos, que a fase de execução do ciclo de vida do projeto permite uma maior coleta de lições aprendidas em projetos, que a percepção da existência de novas ferramentas podem promover uma maior colaboraçao social de informações sobre projetos e que além da importância do processo de conscientizar, uma política para a prática de lições aprendidas se faz necessária. Já a contribuição para a prática se apresenta na adoção de uma sistemática para gestão de lições aprendidas em projetos, inédita naquela instituição.