Factors constraining the development of professional project managers in small and medium sized construction enterprises in South Africa

Abstract

This dissertation reports an investigation into the factors constraining the development of professional project managers in small and medium sized (SME) construction enterprises in South Africa. The 2011 census results revealed that South Africa is faced with a number of economic challenges including high levels of unemployment, low levels of investment, income distribution inequality and lack of skills development. In order to address these challenges, the South African government promulgated the Skills Development Act [No. 97 of 1998] with the aim of improving skilled workforce competency as well as providing appropriate education and training. The South African government has identified that to achieve overall economic benefit, the development of Small and Medium- Sized Construction Enterprises is to be focused on. This is for the reason that they make up about sixty- three percent (63%) of the construction contractors in the country. Project managers have been identified to play a vital role in the delivery of construction projects. The insufficient development of professional project managers in the construction industry have resulted in poor workmanship, cost overruns, time delays and overall performance deficiencies. As a result of these identified problem areas, the investigation of factors constraining the development of professional project managers was achieved through the development of a questionnaire to collect the data from seventeen (17) SME contractors registered with the Construction Industry Development Board. The data were collected using close-ended questions, rating questions as well as open- ended questions within the questionnaire. After this process, the data were analyzed through the use of categorization of data and graphs to compare data collected. The findings revealed that SMEs face financial constraints that ultimately results in lack of investment on improving the skills and competence of practising project managers. As a result, there is lack of professional development due to lack of education and training. This essentially affects effective administering of project management tools and techniques to manage construction projects. The research concludes that there is need to fully implement the Skills Development Act within the construction industry, to encourage professional managers to register with professional project management associations so as to acquire the knowledge, skills and competencies to manage construction projects competently. The small and medium sized construction enterprises should formulate and implement policies to allocate resources to carry out training of project managers periodically to ensure they acquire the knowledge areas necessary to effectively implement project management in the delivery of construction projects.