Programme and Project Management:

Designing for Success, Supporting Change Management

Project and programme reviews show that leadership and management are critical to success. Research on project failures point to poor management as the single most important factor.

Scanteam includes assessment of organisational issues, such as quality of management, as a key component in planning and programming exercises. This is the basis for suggesting organisational structure, staffing levels, capacity building needs, and required management tools, systems and procedures.

If serious organisational problems are identified, "Change Management" may be an appropriate response: helping the organisation assess its own performance and structure to identify which changes need to be undertaken to get the programme back on track and the organisation able to perform its tasks as expected.

Techniques for Change Management are well known from the private sector. In developing and transitional economies  we apply them with similar success: through participatory techniques we can help implementing agencies identify the internal stumbling blocks and find better solutions.

Democratisation Consolidation Programme in Africa

Scanteam facilitated the planning of this programme in one African country, focusing on realistic objectives, indicators, and organisational structure with clear responsibilities. All key posts had clear and unambiguous Job Descriptions, to enable the recruitment of competent staff for the critical tasks required to achieve the objectives. Systems, tools, and decision making structures were defined to ensure that the various parties would interact to ensure that the key challenges would be addressed.