Learning key to boost efficiency in project implementation

Rudo Grace-Gwata Correspondent
As Zimbabwe continues to increase the use of projects, notably the 100-day initiatives, as a means to realise Vision 2030, the need for continuous improvement in project and programme management also increases.

However, this much-needed improvement has always been rather illusive, worldwide.

In Zimbabwe, the situation appears more pronounced as the nation often suffers from repeats of mistakes from programme-to-programme, signifying an urgent need for a strategy to adjust implementation processes which have been identified as a major shortcoming.

Embracing the concept of learning, a proven antidote for such limitations, would pass for one of the best options.

There are several success stories relating to the use of learning as a tool for improving programme implementation.

For example, in 2008, the government of Rwanda needed to improve the performance of its capacity-building programme and sent a team to Madagascar to learn how the latter had used the Rapid Results Approach (RRA) to reverse economic trends within a very short time.

Ultimately, use of RRA was scaled up in all ministries. Similarly, knowledge from learning was used to institutionalise Results Based Management (RBM) and RRA in nations that include Kenya, Ethiopia and Sierra Leone, among other nations.

Learning from both success and failure, a key component of RBM that occurs throughout the life of a project, involves the participatory acquisition, sharing, and use of knowledge to adjust processes or whole systems to improve the achievement of organisational goals.

Literature available shows that a steady flow of new ideas, in some cases imported from outside the organisation, is essential for the successful implementation of initiatives with knowledge gained from failures often turning out to be instrumental in achieving these subsequent successes.

Failure can, therefore, also be an implied ultimate teacher thus confirming the significance of incorporating both lessons learned and best practices into the project processes for the benefit of both current and future projects.

Another typical example is where the less than optimal performance of RBM in the Malaysian public sector led to the modification of the system itself leading to the development of the Integrated Results Based Management (IRBM) by Dr Arunaselam Rasappan of CeDRE International, Malaysia, in the late 1990s.

The IRBM was subsequently adopted in several developing countries, including Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Kenya and Botswana.

The reliance on specific tested methods and decisions informed by evaluative evidence, rather than assumptions, coupled with focus on measurable changes in people’s lives or their conditions (results) generally improves policy and programme implementation.

Also, increasing knowledge through sharing best practices plus lessons learned, derived from participatory monitoring and reporting processes, and integrating them into decisions creates, a sense of cohesion and unity of purpose among stakeholders; an element that helps to motivate them to improve performance.

Monitoring and reporting processes also provide an invaluable opportunity to link the progress towards achieving project goals and resources utilisation as well as promote the development of learning processes.

Besides, assessment of the achievement of suboptimal results presents a window for correcting most key factors such as workforce shortages, insufficient capacity and inefficient processes, when necessary.

All these elements ameliorate the overall performance of current and future project as well as the organisation as a whole.

However, the levels of improvement may be diminished if monitoring and reporting continues to focus on the completion of activities rather than results, as happens in most cases, including in Zimbabwe.

That is, most reports focus on completed procurements such as borehole drilling or road construction rather than changes in people’s lives or their conditions.

Such practice is a shortcoming in itself because lessons derived may only help to improve the associated processes and activities, but without necessarily leading to the achievement of the ultimate goal of improving people’s lives.

Furthermore, continuous learning keeps organisations abreast with environmental developments thus aiding them to think and act ahead of any adverse changes within the environment.

In the same context, they can capitalise on opportunities and minimise risks.

Comparison of projects capacity for solving specific problems is also enabled. In fact, research shows that efficiency and effectiveness are often guaranteed when entities genuinely embrace and sustainably utilise the concept of learning.

Structural enablers for learning that encompass brief reports, meetings, e-mails, rewarding the utilisation of these mechanisms and disciplining non-usage plus creating a central repository of relevant knowledge, are essential for promoting the effective adoption and sustainability of learning.

Staff, at all levels, are encouraged to collect information across all boundaries and also to be constantly involved in feedback loops. That is, seeking feedback from their colleagues on ideas or actions taken while also routinely giving feedback to others as well as the regular “feeding forward” of ideas and suggestions to associates.

Creating a repository with moderated access can help ensure that the knowledge is secure and also used rather than being lost, forgotten or hoarded. The knowledge also ought to be reviewed periodically to guarantee its continued relevance and usefulness to the organisation.

Moreover, introducing the position of a Knowledge Officer, responsible for the collection, safekeeping and dissemination of information throughout the organisation proved to be helpful for entrenching the structural enablers into the organisation and also for promoting consistent learning for everyone.

In the long-term, that organisation underscores continuous learning and makes it a way of life that is ingrained into the organisational culture, is established and sustained.

Such entrenchment is achieved through consistently creating, acquiring and transferring knowledge for the expansion of capacity to learn and achieve desired results. In other words, people continually “learn how to learn together” and modify their behaviour to reflect new knowledge and insights. These new ideas, when accompanied by changes in behaviour, facilitate improvement in policy or programme implementation.

A learning organisation facilitates improved implementation of initiatives through reinforcement of best practices, elimination of past failures plus weak, old practices as well as through their inherent capacity-building expertise.

Practices are informed by a commitment to valuing established and sustained knowledge, different kinds of learning styles plus the creation of a “learning environment” making members and the organisation realise their full potential.

It underscores the concept of self-improvement whereby individuals demonstrate an ongoing quest for both self and work-related knowledge.

In the same context, leadership is fostered throughout the organisation.

Furthermore, with a basic assumption that everyone needs to know, communication is open and widespread among all stakeholders, as appropriate.

Dialogue, exploration of different perspectives and experiences to generate creative thinking as well as collaboration among stakeholders to boost the release of creative potential are strongly encouraged.

Relatedly, leadership constantly communicates what it is learning to demonstrate the importance of the concept as well as enhance the capacity for the same towards the improved implementation of initiatives.

Factors that impede the full adoption of the concept of learning, identified from research, incorporate lack of support from management and leadership, pressure from daily work and general unwillingness to commit to the concept or to learn from mistakes.

Additionally, some entities demonstrate a lack of discipline to appropriate use of project documents and other guidelines or generally treat lessons learned as unique to specific programmes and thus inapplicable to other projects or sections of the organisation.

The presence of a champion of continuous learning in top management as well as senior leaders who clearly communicate, primarily through their actions and also by their words, that learning is valued, can help to address these impediments.

These leaders need to demonstrate and communicate details about their continued learning efforts.,

Both experiential evidence and literature show that the survival of organisations, at some point in their history, depends on their capacity to learn. Besides, many entities, from both the private and public sector, have flourished principally because they continuously and improve.

It may therefore, prove to be worthwhile for entities in Zimbabwe to consider reinforcing the concept of learning in all their activities to facilitate improved implementation of policies and programmes towards the realization of Vision 2030.

 

Dr Rudo Grace Gwata-Charamba is an author, development project/ programme management consultant and researcher with a special interest in Results Based Management (RBM), governance and leadership. She can be contacted via e-mail: [email protected]