Nigeria Needs More Project and Program Managers

Adopting the best practices in project management across all industries and sectors is very important if any nation is to succeed in achieving its grand plan, and Nigeria is not an exception to this.

The contribution of project management ranges from planning infrastructural developments to executing projects that will boost economic growth, thereby providing employment opportunities to its labor force while contributing immensely to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

For Nigeria to achieve its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) or the Vision 20:2020 plan which states, “By 2020 Nigeria will be one of the 20 largest economies in the world, able to consolidate its leadership role in Africa and establish itself as a significant player in the global economic and political arena”, then she needs to put program management professionals at helm of its grand plan.The program approach to managing multiple projects in Nigeria needs a lot of improvement. Qualified and experienced program managers are in short supply in Nigeria, both in the private and public sectors, and it does impact negatively on the timeline for project implementation and the ability to control multiple project outcomes.

However, the shortage of qualified program managers within the country can be traced back to lack or shortage of practicing project managers in the past.

Conferences and workshops have been organized, including those of ProMaCon, with a lot of discussion on how to accelerate the development of project managers within the country, without compromising the projects and quality of these project managers.

Nigeria would benefit not only from more project managers but from a more matured project management culture. The country needs more project managers adopting best practices in project-intensive sectors such as the construction, energy, manufacturing, and information technology sectors. This in turn will help raise more qualified program managers in the future. Project managers in Nigeria echo that sentiment. Taiwo Fadare, PMP, Port Harcourt, cites a need for more project managers: “I recently did a presentation to Chicason Group, the company developing Abuja City Center worth $2.7 billion. It captures statistics of losses on projects as a result of engaging non-best practices. So, we need more project management professionals, be it from PMI or PRINCE2, etc,” he says. Mr. Taiwo further said we do not just need more project managers but professionals who understand the benefits of best practices.

Moreover, in terms of accelerating the development of project managers within the country, we need to first of all know the exact output of project managers in Nigeria as there are only a few universities offer project management as an independent qualification. That is to say that Nigeria produces only a couple of hundred project managers with formal project management qualifications a year. Even some of the tertiary institutions offering project management courses in the country are not accredited.

Nigeria needs to accelerate the development of qualified project managers so as to increase the level of awareness of project management within the country. And also, most of these project managers will gain enough experience in the future to become program managers. Some will even progress beyond being program managers to becoming portfolio managers.

Portfolio Managers, Program Manager, project management nigeria, Project Managers