Project Management Tools and Critical Success Factors in International Humanitarian Aid Projects

Abstract
In recent years, the project management field has received increasing attention, in terms of both practical implementation and research. However, unlike other sectors, project management practice in the field of international humanitarian aids seems to be neglected. In this context, the current paper illustrates an empirical study on international humanitarian aids projects performed by Italian non-governmental organizations. The aim of the paper is to investigate the use of PM tools in humanitarian aid projects and the relationship between critical success factors and project success. The necessary data were gathered through a questionnaire and statistical methods were subsequently implemented for the data analysis.

 

Keywords: Critical success factors, aid projects, PM tools, project success, survey, international aid sector

 

Introduction
Development cooperation is an integral part of Italy's foreign policy including both public and private initiatives [44]. Its main scope is to satisfy primary needs and, first and foremost, to safeguard human life, food self-sufficiency, the enhancement of human resources, the conservation of the environmental heritage, the implementation and consolidation of endogenous development processes and the economic, social and cultural growth of developing countries, as well as to improve the status of women and children. Moreover, development cooperation includes extraordinary initiatives designed to address calamities and situations of malnutrition and shortcomings in health sanitation provision that threaten the survival of communities.

 

While there is a growing volume of literature about Project Management (PM) in the construction and manufacturing sectors, humanitarian aid projects are less represented ([57], [18] [3], [31]). This paper aims to contribute to PM research by exploring the relationship between the use of PM tools and project success in non?traditional PM – although projectoriented – humanitarian aid projects. In this context, our analysis focuses on the following research questions:

• Does the use of project management tools depend on the context of the project?

• What are the critical success factors for humanitarian aid projects carried out by NonGovernmental Organizations (NGOs) and what is their relationship to project success?

• What are the limits and the difficulties that a project manager faces using PM tools?

• Which project management tools are currently used by project managers within humanitarian aid projects?

 

In order to address these questions, we developed a questionnaire and submitted it to project managers, who are responsible for Italian NGO projects in the humanitarian aid sector. After the introduction, this paper is structured in 5 sections. It begins with a description of project management in the aid sector and a review of related literature. Particular attention was paid to the concepts of success criteria and critical success factors. The focus of the paper is then expressed in terms of 3 hypotheses to be verified. Section 3 explains the research methodology: the questionnaire is illustrated together with all the measured variables. The dataanalysis and the research results are presented in Section 4. Finally, the conclusions discuss the findings of the study, presenting the limitations of the research and suggesting further investigations.

Background and motivation

Background and motivation
Project management is a recognized and well-known management method that is currently widely applied. Besides the industrial sector, PM has also found applications in other areas of focus, such as risk assessment, construction, health and safety management [8] [10] [38]. A great many studies have been performed in the PM field; the aim of the following literature review is not to provide an overall summary of the subject but to focus on the specific issues that are dealt with in our study: PM in the humanitarian aid sector. Although researchers have already analyzed various aspects of this context the aim of the current study was to examine in depth the tools and techniques used in humanitarian aid projects, the project success and the critical success factors (CSFs) that have a positive influence. 

 

Project management in the aid sector
The Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge defines a project as a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result. Project management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to all the activities involved in a project in order to achieve the project requirements [46] [47]. As stated by Shenhar and Dvir [50], projects reveal substantial variations and, consequently, their management approach is anything but universal. In particular, projects performed in the aid sectors are characterized by specific and unique features [14]: 

 

• A large number of heterogeneous stakeholders, with different perspectives and interests, are involved [57]. The stakeholder classification proposed by Diallo and Thuillier [19] gives the idea of this complexity. It identified seven stakeholders involved in humanitarian aid projects: the coordinator, the task manager, the national supervisor, the project team which is directly under the coordinator’s authority, the steering committee, the beneficiaries and the population at large. Furthermore, difficulties in stakeholder management derive not only from the great number of people interacting but also from the different interacting cultures.

 

• The project's goals are mainly “soft” goals concerned with the environment and human rights protection, social transformations, poverty alleviation, assistance for victims of natural or man-made disasters, and economic development [3]. The nature of the project goals generates difficulties in the performance measurement process and increases the risk of political corruption [34].

• The operating environment is often characterized by peculiar and individual features, like socio-political instability, cultural gaps between project actors, particular bureaucratic rules and procedures, a low-tech context and a high level of corruption. These could make traditional PM tools less suitable and effective and consequently, it is essential to adapt PM practices to the local culture [1]. The locality should be taken into consideration starting from the project planning stage [26].

 

The uniqueness and the peculiarity of aid projects within the project management environment call for a specific focus. Traditional project management approaches have to be evaluated and implemented with caution and the need for possible ad hoc modification has to be taken into account.

 

Project success measurement
Project success is a complex and multidimensional notion, which is not univocally defined. Although studies on project success have been at the heart of the project management sector for many years, research has not converged to a mutually agreed approach. An interesting background has been proposed by Crawford and Bryce [18] that has focused on the evolution of project success literature since the 1970s. 

 

Traditionally project success was defined by the “iron triangle” of time, cost and quality [44]; with this type of approach time, budget, and performance are the main indicators for project success [37]. Even if cost, time and quality are still considered to be the central aspects for
measuring project success [2], the use of these factors alone can lead to an incomplete and distorted assessment of a project [4] and may fail to correctly evaluate whether the project was properly implemented [32]. Over the past 40 years, the concept of project success has evolved from a perspective focused on the implementation stage to a more holistic approach that involves the evaluation of success along the whole project life cycle [9] [30]. To define and measure project success we need to identify a set of principles, conditions or standards called project success criteria. This type of approach, identified as a multi-criteria approach, requires the evaluation of different project success dimensions in order to ascertain the success or the failure of a project. Whereas some success criteria are common across different project types, there are also unique criteria that apply only to specific projects [41] and even the relative importance of different success dimensions assigned by project managers depends on the type of project [42]. The strict dependency of the project success criteria on the specific project type encouraged us to focus specifically on the measurement of project success in the humanitarian aid sector.