Agricultural Project Management: Monitoring and Control of Implementation

196 Pages·1984·4.516 MB·English

by  Peter Smith (auth.)

AGRICULTURAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Monitoring and Control of Implementation
AGRICULTURAL PROJECT
MANAGEMENT
Monitoring and Control
of Implementation
PETER SMITH
Honorary Research Fellow, Centre for Agricultural Strategy, Reading
University, UK (formerly Resident Adviser to World Bank projects in Sind
Province, Pakistan)
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Smith, Peter.
Agricultural project management.
I. Agricultural development projects
Developing countries-Management
I. Title
630'.68'4
ISBN-13:978-94-011-5935-7 e-ISBN-13: 978-94-011-5933-3
001: 10.1007/978-94-011-5933-3
WITH 24 TABLES AND 36 ILLUSTRATIONS
© ELSEVIER APPLIED SCIENCE PUBLISHERS LTD 1984
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Preface
I first became interested in the methods of planning the sequence and
timing of jobs on large-scale development projects, as a field officer
involved in planning and implementing mechanised farming schemes in
Uganda in the mid-sixties. This interest was reinforced by experience of
agro-industrial projects in both Nigeria and Iran, when it became
obvious that the lax traditional methods of both planning and controll
ing the implementation of agricultural and other rural development
projects were very ineffective compared with those already in use in other
disciplines. An extended spell as Resident Adviser on a World Bank
project to strengthen planning and project management services in the
agricultural sector in Sind Province, Pakistan, stimulated this interest
further, and gave opportunities to develop the use of improved methods
on some very complex schemes.
This book summarises the experience gained in adapting critical path
methods, well established in other fields, to Third World development
projects, with their peculiar problems.
It would not have been possible to reach this point without the help
and stimulation of discussions with a large number of colleagues, includ
ing John Joyce (then of Hunting Technical Services), Hatsuya Azumi
(World Bank), and-particularly-Zaffar Sohrwardy and Akhtar Ali of
Aarkays Associates in Karachi, during our work together.
My thanks are also due to Yasin Mohammed, who typed most of the
original draft; Anwar Mohammed and Irene Mills for final typing; and to
my wife, Jill, for drawing the original figures.
PETER SMITH
High Greenleycleugh,
Ninebanks,
Hexharn,
Northumberland,
UK
v
Contents
Preface v
1. The Scope of Project Management 1
1.1. Introduction 1
1.2. Requirements of an Effective Project Management
System 4
1.3. Traditional Methods of Controlling Agricultural
Projects 7
1.4. Critical Paths--Introduction to an Improved
Method 14
1.5. An Example of the Improved Method:
Planning the Schedule 15
1.6. CPM and After 18
2. Solving the Critical Path Problem 20
2.1. The Example 20
2.2. The Network 21
2.3. The Main Objective: Finding the Critical Path 27
2.4. Tabulation of the Data 27
2.5. The Forward Pass--Calculating Early Start
and Early Finish Dates 30
2.6. The Backward Pass-Calculating Late Start
and Late Finish Dates 34
2.7. Float. 35
2.8. The Critical Path 40
2.9. Review of the Initial Analysis 41
2.10. Alternative Methods of Network Construction 42
2.11. Note on Terminology 46
vii
viii Contents
3. The Network: Collecting the Data 48
3.1. Introduction 48
3.2. The Initial Session 49
3.3. Specialist Sessions 53
3.4. The Next Step . 60
4. Resource Scheduling 61
4.1. Definition of Scheduling 61
4.2. Determination of Resource Requirements of
Acti vi ties . 61
4.3. Determining the Availability of Resources 64
4.4. Assessing the Resource Requirements of the
Initial Schedule. 66
4.5. Resource Levelling 69
4.6. Consequences of Resource Levelling 78
4.7. Presentation of Results 79
4.8. Afternative Resource Scheduling Method. 79
4.9. Multi-Project Scheduling. 80
5. Review of Working Methods 82
5.1. Allocation of Extra Resources (Crashing). 82
5.2. Adjusting the Specifications of the Job 91
5.3. Changes in Working Methods. 92
5.4. Costing Savings on Major Alterations
of Schedule 93
5.5. Conversion to Calendar Dates. 95
6. Risk and Uncertainty in Project Scheduling 97
6.1. Introduction 97
6.2. Statistics
6.3. Expected Duration of Critical Path or Critical
Segments . 108
6.4. Testing for the Need to Revise Duration Estimates. 114
6.5. Choice of Probability Levels 117
6.6. Decision Networks 118
7. Critical Path Methods at the Planning Stage 121
7.1. Introduction 121
7.2. Getting the Framework Right . 122
7.3. Problems of Data Gathering at the Planning Stage 125
Contents ix
7.4. Organisational Structure of the Project 126
7.5. Contractual Structure of Projects 131
7.6. Implications 140
7.7. Planning the Planning 142
8. Using the Network 145
8.1. Introduction 145
8.2. The Downward Flow of Information:
Instructions and Advice 148
8.3. The Upward Flow of Information 152
8.4. Financial Reporting. 164
9. Critical Path Analysis by Computer 173
9.1. Do You Really Need a Computer? . 173
9.2. Computer Terms 174
9.3. Requirements of a Good CPA Software Package 177
9.4. Requirements of a Suitable Machine 182
9.5. Examples of Suitable Software. 183
Index 187
CHAPTER 1
The Scope of Project Management
1.1. INTRODUCTION
In our context-agricultural development-a project is a unique opera
tion to modify the means of production. This definition includes a huge
range of activities, from an individual farmer constructing a large new
dairy unit, to a government department executing large scale. con
servation works, or even to a project in which the major items are
administrative rather than physical, such as the reorganisation of part of
the state's agricultural services.
The boundaries of a project will depend on the interests and res
ponsibilities of the agency involved: for example, for the sponsor of the
scheme-usually a government department-the project consists of
everything required to bring the scheme into production. However, for a
civil engineering contractor on the operation, his contractual obligations
alone constitute his project.
Each of these agencies has to manage the physical activities and flow
of funds within its area of responsibility. It is in attempting to do this
that the big difference between projects and production (using existing
capital assets) is revealed: many of the management tools and techniques
which are so useful to the production manager rely on observing regular
practice. Work study and activity sampling do this with a view to
improving the standard methods; and management by exception uses
deviations from the regular pattern as a signal that intervention is
necessary. Regular practice, in production management, is of massive
importance as a bench mark. This reference point is usually not available
to the project manager: we have, by including the word 'unique' in the
definition of projects, separated off a class of undertakings which are
essentially one-off jobs, on which there is no regular practice to refer to.
2 Agricultural Project Management
No two major irrigation projects, no two large-scale range improvement
schemes, will be sufficiently alike to enable the first to serve as a detailed
guide on how the second should be implemented, despite the fact that
some of the components may be identical. Therefore, project manage
ment requires a distinct set of techniques to collate and interpret
information relevant to controlling the scheduling of activities and the
flow of funds in a way that provides a reliable alternative reference point.
These techniques are relevant in a wide range of situations: in large-scale
investments on individual farms in the developed countries, in traditional
agricultural development projects in the less developed countries (LDCs),
and in the management of the work of an individual contractor on a
large project.
Suitable techniques do exist, and have been widely used in a variety of
commercial and engineering applications, in many countries; agriculture
is one of the few fields in which they have not been applied. The whole
question of the effectiveness of project management systems is of par
ticular concern in agricultural projects in the LDCs, and this is the field
which we shall mainly be discussing; but the methods and comments,
with minor and obvious changes, apply equally well to agricultural
projects anywhere.
A second point of difference between project management and most
production management is that the project manager has to be a man
who coordinates the efforts of technical specialists. Unlike the- manager
of, say, an engineering factory, who will be dealing with a single
discipline, he must be able to integrate the efforts-and interpret the
reports-of civil engineers, utilities agencies (e.g. gas or electricity sup
pliers), builders, equipment installers, and his agricultural staff.
1.1.1. The Need for Project Management
The reasons why agricultural development projects are such a centre of
concern are: the urgency of increasing food and fibre production in the
poorer countries; the amount of investment that is being applied, by both
the re«ipients and by aid agencies, apparently without proportionate
returns. Some of the reasons for this arise outside the sphere of project
management: for example, a project may be ill-conceived from the start,
because it requires an input of working capital or labour by farmers who
are unable or unwilling to make the necessary contributions. However,
to suggest that all projects which are significantly less effective than their
planners intended were ill-chosen is undoubtedly wrong: many are
marred in the making, as a result of disorganised implementation. This
The Scope of Project Management 3
usually results in incomplete implementation of the original plan, or such
delays that the investment is near useless, by reason of deterioration of
parts of the project. Many sad examples of this have occurred on
resettlement projects, where disjointed implementation has resulted in
settlers arriving before the promised roads, or schools, or water supplies
have been provided, with the result that they become disgruntled and
alienated.
1.1.2. Project Management: Relationship with Monitoring and Evaluation
There are sufficient cases in both categories (ill-conceived and badly
implemented projects) to have generated a strong interest among those
actively involved in agricultural development in the whole area of project
control and assessment, which is often referred to as monitoring and
evaluation. Unfortunately, it has not always been clearly appreciated
that this phrase embraces three functions, distinct in that they require
very different techniques and answer very different questions. These
functions are:
(i) Monitoring of implementation--this is examining whether or not
the project is being implemented according to the current plan.
The project management systems described here can fulfil this
function.
(ii) Monitoring of operation-this is examining whether or not the
completed project is being operated according to the original
specifications. For example, in the case of a project to set up a
new extension service, monitoring of operation would check
whether the required number of visits were being made by extension
workers. This function relies heavily on statistical reports; other
available techniques include activity sampling, in which the work
of the staff is checked directly, in particular periods selected
according to a proper statistical plan, to find out what they
actually are doing and why.
(iii) Evaluation-investigating whether or not this project, once im
plemented, has produced the benefits forecast, at the price bud
geted for. This question can be tackled by econometric methods.
For example, to test the success of a project designed to increase
farmers' use of fertiliser by extension efforts and an improved
distribution system, the evaluator might compare the trend and
fertiliser usage in districts inside the project with the trend in
projects outside the district, statistically corrected for other