Benchmark for Improving Project Planning in Production Industry

In the production (farming) industry in Uganda, great attention has been put on small holder farmers to evolve them into commercial farmers. A lot of grants are being released to small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) who have direct touch with farmers as project implementers’. From these studies, I have critically looked at the differences and the problems within the industries, the study model used, and the base assumptions the researchers made.

Finally the areas of analysis to enable me use the results as a benchmark for improving project planning in the production (farming) industry. Bench marking, project planning and success and successful project delivery From the study carried out on bench marking of project planning and success, production organizations were found to be the poorest performers. According to Zwikael,O. and Globerson, S. (2006, PP. 94) these may result from the fact that projects are not part of the regular operation of such companies as they focus much on operations, therefore, their planning is oriented to day-to-day operations planning rather than to project planning. Secondly, capital investment variation plays a big factor in this performance because it is the determinant of resource availability.  The study uses project management planning (PMPQ) model that analyzed the use of project planning process in the industries (Zwikael, O. and Globerson, S. (2006, PP. 690) by both the project manager and the organization.

The study based on the assumptions that the more frequent a certain process is performed by an organization; the more competent the organization is in the process (Zwikael & Globerson, 2006, PP. 690). Since the quality of planning process depends both on the planning process and the organization support processes, the analysis area covered the frequency in which a planning process product (WBS Chart) was used to estimate the frequency in which a process is performed which meant the maturity level of that specific process (PP. 90).  According to Penny Packer, J. S and Grant, K. P, (2003, Pg. 1), several initiatives such as enterprise wide project management process, highly integrated support process, training programs to prepare project managers and team members to execute the process effectively, among others, would definitely help production (farming) industry to develop capability to deliver projects successfully time and time again.

Since project processes are new phenomenon to these enterprises (SMEs), training of the project managers and the project team members on the project processes, will Increase their capabilities in quality planning process to come out with best plans. Which in turn will enable project management team come out with a good task duration estimate for each task, good cost estimate and allocate adequate resources in terms of personnel, tools and other support to sufficiently enable the project deliver successfully.

Drawing from the analysis above, organization support process are fundamental to the quality planning process and project success, therefore, the enterprises (SMEs) should be trained on project management processes and emphasis be put on their contribution to project success so that they effectively give adequate organizational support process to the production (farming) projects they are implementing such as selecting skilled project managers, allocating enough funds and timely to activities, getting in place adequate tools and personnel to perform tasks, this will adequately bring in the production industry good task duration estimate, good costing and allocation of resources, hence result in project success. STUDY FINDINGS As cited by Zwikael and Globerson (2006, Pp. 689) from (Penny packer and Grant, 2003; Ibbs and Kwak, 2000), engineering and construction organizations were found to have high maturity level and capabilities of performing project process. This was attributed to leadership, information sharing and degree of authorization (Cooke-Davies and Arzymanow, 2002). This lends a fundamental guidance to the production (farming) industry.

Though the project funding may look small, the issue of leadership in the project should be taken seriously. Most enterprises implementing farming projects are owned by semi-illiterate entrepreneurs so they should endeavor to employ skilled project managers, they should accept to be trained and be able to implement improvement strategies learnt. Information sharing capabilities go hand in hand with literacy levels. Most enterprises (SMEs) tend to close up, keep secrets and also learn nothing even within the industry itself. To enhance the issue of information sharing, entrepreneurs need to be shown the benefits that go with information sharing such as savings in costs. The degree of authorization, is in other words, the resource allocation.

With close involvement of the organization in the project management process, resource allocation becomes adequate. The organization institutes monitoring and control processes, takes immediate mitigation process to whatever deviation that occur, therefore, contributing greatly to the success of the project. Planning is a critical success factor in any project. Zwikael and Globerson (2006, Pp. 689) state that high quality planning increases the chances that project will be properly executed and completed and we found that quality of planning process depends both on the planning process handled by the project manager and the organization support process handled by the organization (Pg. 690).

Therefore it is the prime duty of the project manager to make sure that he handles the planning process well and links up with the organization to adequately render their support processes so that he realizes a quality planning process. In this case, it does not matter whether the project is small or big, engineering or production in nature.