INFLUENCE OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS ATTRIBUTES ON PROJECT PERFORMANCE: A CASE OF YOUTH POLYTECHNIC DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS IN EMBU COUNTY, KENYA
Catherine Wanjiru Ngari - Master of Arts in Project Planning and Management, University of Nairobi, Kenya
Dr. Annie Ndiritu - University of Nairobi, Kenya
ABSTRACT
Organizational performance is one of the most imperative constructs in management research. Development projects are generally recognized as successful when they are finished on time, within budget, and in harmony with specifications and to stakeholders’ satisfaction. Many of the projects exceed the original cost; get cancelled prior to completion, while others fail in terms of the delivered functionality. While a lot of time and resources are dedicated to selecting and designing projects, it remains of vital significance that projects be adequately managed in organizations so that they can achieve their performance objectives. The purpose of the study was to establish the influence of Project Management Information System attributes on project performance in the youth polytechnics; a case of Embu County, Kenya. The Objectives of this study was to determine the influence of PMIS system software on performance of polytechnic development projects, to establish the influence of quality information generated by PMIS on performance of polytechnic development projects, to assess the influence of PMIS user on performance of polytechnic development projects and to determine the influence of PMIS use on performance of polytechnic development projects. Descriptive survey research design was used to enable the researcher obtain the opinions of project managers in their natural setting. The study used a sample of 10 managers derived from a target population of 32, 43 instructors derived from a target population of 143 and 27 support staff derived from a target population of 90. Simple Random sampling technique was used to select the samples from the target population. Questionnaires were used to collect Data. Data was analyzed by use of descriptive statistics; frequency tables mean. Cronach’s alpha test was used in assessing reliability of research instrument which was 0.917. Hence the instrument was reliable. Descriptive statistics and Correlation (using the Pearson’s coefficient of correlation) was used to establish the relationship between the dependent variables and the set of independent variables at 5% level of confidence using the SPSS version 20 software. The research found out that the use of the software to generate quality information needed by the user (project manager) to perform project tasks helped the project managers perform their tasks in a more professional manner thus increasing the probability of the project success. The quality of the system software has a major impact on the acceptance of the system, its effect on the efficiency and effectiveness of the performance in organizations. The quality of information is directly and strongly related to project management information system use and to the system’s impacts on the project manager. The system’s ease of use, accessibility, learn capability and flexibility play an important role in producing relevant, accurate and secure information as perceived by the development project manager for the success of the development projects. The use of various function tools i.e. planning, monitoring, Evaluation and reporting tools had led to improving the probability of project performance due to the quality of information generated by the PMIS. All the independent variables had a significant relationship to the dependent variable, because the p-value in all the relationships was 0.000 which is less than the alpha value (level of significance) 0.01. It was therefore concluded that it is not the complexity of the software that matters but the relevance of the information generated and the ability of the user to use the information to manage the project. It was recommended that Youth polytechnics should adopt the use of Project Management Information System in the management of their development projects.
