Addis Ababa University

College of Business and Economics

School of Commerce
MA Project Management

Contemporary issues in Project Management

Assignment One

Prepared By: Eden Fiseha

ID - GSE/3472/12

Section: 1

Submitted to: Dr. Worku M. (PhD)

January 2022
1. Consider a project that is already completed and handed to the client. Identify and
discuss issues involved at each project phases. Hint you are expected to conduct an
interview with the project manager or a responsible body that has managed the project
and report the issues. You are expected to follow a standard reporting format.

Introduction

For this question I have chosen an educational project under the British Council called Active
Citizens project that has taken place in early 2021.

Active Citizens is a social leadership program that promotes intercultural dialogue and social
responsibility as key leadership competencies in the 21st century.

Active Citizens is run by the British Council working with civil society organizations all over
the world. New partners and funders have increased Active Citizens’ reach across the globe,
including national governance structures and educational institutions. It began in 2009 and
has been delivered in the UK, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and the Americas. It has
reached more than 210,000 people to date through its training, conferences, social research
and International Study Visits.

When we come to the Ethiopian context, the Active Citizen trading involved 20 universities,
almost 100 trainers, more than 10,000 trainees. Project Staff consisted of only 1 full time and
7 part-time workers who worked tirelessly and urgently to deliver the training with only a
limited time frame. As per my interview with the project lead, it is very clear that this project
was very rushed, with little planning and preparation period, understaffed and overall a very
ambitious move by the British Council Ethiopia management but yet has achieved its final
goals. Because of this, the project has faced issues in different phases of its life-cycle.

Project issues in the Planning phase

The planning in terms of schedule, activities, agenda depended on the main organizer minster
office (the government, as it was in collaboration with MOE) and the schedule changed very
often without the proper communication which left the project managers having to re-do all
activities and training plans several times. This issue is often seen repetitively when working
with Government offices and the consequences affect the project starting and scope very
much and in this particular project, it made the planning of certain activities a struggle. Plans
had to stay tentative for so long get confirmed after constant request and often at last minute
which causes rushing and racing with time.
Launching was challenging to organize a proper kick off meeting to update about the work
planned to deliver to all partners at the same time, as most of partners were traveling.
Arranging meetings and proper communication has been the major issue throughout this
project.

Issues with procurement

The British Councils procurement process has some drawback when organizing large events.
Proper procedure needed to be followed to comply with the system, this meant adding days to
purchase the needed training materials. At times there was a delay getting the order material
on time, as the materials needed to be repack to be sent to each training site, this lead to
adding more personnel to make up the lost time which meant more spending.
Another procurement issue was the dropping out of trainers at the last minute and not having
enough time to get back up trainers for some training areas. This was once again because of
the lack of time given in preparation and planning phase and not having a backup in case
some trainers couldn’t make it. This caused other trainers to do double training and this might
cause the energy and enthusiasm of the trainers which in turn affects the trainees.

Logistical Issue

Coordinating the travel of around 100 trainers created a logistical problem to the already
stretched program staff. For the first-round training selecting the appropriate hotel for the
training that is close to the training venue proved difficulty. The daily rate of the hotel needed
to be below 1,000 birr, had to be comfortable, close to the road. As Ethiopia is a developing
country most of the country’s hotel facilities as less available and not up to standard. Most of
the hotels in the area where the training is being conducted either had been fully booked or
had limited available space. Managing who stays were as proved difficult.

Transportation also had to be arranged for the trainers. Scheduling of departure time, making
sure the vehicles and the people arrive on the pickup location on time, making sure the
vehicles were appropriate for the planned trip, arranging back up in case of problems, choice
of trip route, loading and unloading of training materials, clarifying destination, making sure
covid protocols are being followed and producers in case of accident or any unforeseen
situation were part of the logistic arrangement. All the above mentioned tasked has been as
issue on some of the travels. Car breakdown on the border of a conflict area and arranging a
replacement transport was one of the major issues.
Payment
Advance payment for each trainer was processed through one of the British Council partners.
Finding a willing partner with the ability to process advance payment for 100 trainers was
difficult. After the event facilitator was found challenges on contractual procedure rose. As
this type of project was never undertaken by the Ethiopia British Council office before,
getting the approval took longer. There were delays on the part of the event facilitator on
processing and paying the money to the trainers. There were also situations were trainers did
not go to the training area and not returning the advance payment paid.

Since all the payment were being processed by only two project members payment delays to
the vendors have occurred and they were left to clean up the mess even after the training was
concluded.

Collecting data from each participant (before and after evaluation forms) to trace the level of
impact of the trainings delivered as part of the project was very difficult because of lack of
staff to accommodate 10,000 participants and compile the impact story on time.

Conclusion

Despite some major hiccups that hinder the smooth flow and completion of the project
delivery, the training was indeed delivered to 10,000 citizens and even made the news
headlines when the trainees received their certificates from the Prime Minister himself.

In conclusion, we can list the below issues that could have been avoided with the proper
Project management.

- Enough time for proper planning – the planning was done in a very short period of
time and without following the proper guidelines for planning and without having all
of the stakeholders involved in the planning stage which caused repetitive changes
once stakeholders and partners were informed. The planning should be not only in
delivering the project and be done with it but more importantly focused on the 10,000
trainees who are the end users and that would be making the changes and expected
movements on behalf of the country. Something that is rushed and planned so quickly
just because of funding and focused on numbers rather than the quality of the delivery
will not meet the outcome desired.
- Scoping – when planning such kind of rushed project, the project managers should
atleast narrow the scope to a more manageable setting. Like for example, conducting
the training in one place instead of 20 different cities in Ethiopia, reducing the number
of trainees to have a more manageable group, hiring enough staff to have full support
in executing the project.
 - Launch – proper launching preparation didn’t take place in terms of getting enough
staff, proper facilities that comply with the British Council regulations.
- Monitor and control – the lack of proper monitoring and control throughout the project
lifecycle has made the next moves unpredictable.
- Project closure – much like the planning phase, the project closure was to end with
report to donors, partners and stakeholders. But this success story was delayed because
of the lack of support to close financial payments to vendors which brought up
complains from the stakeholders.

All in all, as I have said at the beginning of my paper, this project was very ambitious and
overwhelming and with proper time and preparation, it could have done much more than it
has at the end and helped a lot more trainees gain substantial knowledge and support.

2. Discuss the Agile project models. Show their applicability in IT related projects. In
all cases your discussion should be supported with examples drawn from project
management practices.

Agile is a project management methodology that uses short development cycles called
“sprints” to focus on continuous improvement in the development of a product or service.

Agile project model is commonly used for software development projects. It has greater
adaptability to frequently changing scope. As a consequence, agile project management uses
iterative or phased planning and continuous integration throughout the life of the project.

Agile project model is more suited for:

- Teams handling fast-changing deliverables, such as technology products.

- Teams working on projects that evolve or do not have clear scope and requirements at
the beginning.
- Teams working closely with customers and other external parties throughout a project.

Agile teams are known to be highly efficient at getting work done. Because Agile teams
share a collaborative culture, efficiencies tend to have a ripple effect. Look for an Agile
solutions provides insights into delivery trends to remove bottlenecks and adapt workflow
processes for improved productivity.

Within agile there are some frequently used or popular methods, with Scrum, Kanban, and
Lean being the most popular.

Agile project management and Scrum

Scrum is a powerful framework for implementing agile processes in software development
and other projects. This highly adopted framework utilizes short iterations of work, called
sprints, and daily meetings, called scrums, to tackle discrete portions of a project in
succession until the project as a whole is complete. There are three key roles within Scrum:
the Scrum master, product owner, and Scrum team members:
• The product owner creates and prioritizes a product backlog (work to be done).
• Teams select items from the backlog and determine how to complete the work.
• Work must be completed within a sprint (usually two to four weeks).
• The Scrum master meets with teams briefly each day to get progress updates.
• Sprint reviews are conducted at the end of each sprint.
• The process starts again until all work or backlog is complete.
The drawbacks of agile

As with any other methodology, agile is not well-suited for every project, and sufficient due
diligence is always recommended to identify the best methodology for each unique situation.
Agile may not work as intended if a customer is not clear on goals, the project manager or
team is inexperienced, or if they do not function well under significant pressure. Throughout
the development process, agile favors the developers, project teams and customer goals, but
not necessarily the end user’s experience. Due to its less formal and more flexible processes,
agile may not always be easily absorbed within larger more traditional organizations where
there are significant amounts of rigidity or flexibility within processes, policies, or teams. It
may also face problems being used with customers who similarly have rigid processes or
operating methods.

Software development projects often face conflicting challenges of developing software

products at an accelerated pace while developing them with a forcefulness to make them
dependable. IT projects, aiming to keep pace with the fast-changing technology
developments, often undergo scope changes during the planning and implementation stages.
Consequently, IT projects have challenges that are different from traditional projects. Several
adjustments and modifications to traditional project management practices are developed and
practiced for IT projects, thereby introducing new project management methodologies such
as agile project management.

An Example of real project that use agile method can be JP Morgan Chase. A few years ago,
the baking giant overhauled their business processes to help improve product development
and simultaneously slashed the cost of training as part of a high-profile IT initiative. Agile
methodologies were a key part of the initiative. The initiative involved the extensive
redevelopment of key platforms, and in some instances, multiple legacy systems. JP Morgan
Chase has really adopted Agile and being able to ship product every three weeks is a massive
productivity boost. All of this is made possible by faster, more nimble and responsive teams
that Agile frameworks promote.