A Humanitarian Approach
At the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), good project management isn’t just about maximizing efficiencies — it’s about saving lives. UNOPS is an operational arm of the United Nations that oversees thousands of peace-building, humanitarian and development projects around the world.
Projects run the gamut from building roads and hospitals to running elections and procuring food and medicine for hard-hit communities.
But for years, the organization struggled to meet schedule and budget goals, and to ensure the needs of sponsors and communities were aligned. “There is a big lack of project management understanding in the humanitarian sector,” says Ricardo Viana Vargas, PMI-RMP, PMI-SP, PMP, director, sustainable project management practice group, UNOPS, Copenhagen, Denmark.
That began to change in 2011, when the organization decided to transition from an ad hoc project management practice — in which every project team in every country had its own approach — to a formal global strategy followed by everyone.
“If you don’t have a formal methodology and process, you are relying on one manager to deliver your goals,” Mr. Vargas says. “That ad hoc approach creates a much higher probability of risk.”
Mr. Vargas was hired to lead this transformation and tasked with ensuring not only that projects came in on time and on budget, but that they were the right projects to support. “We knew UNOPS’ challenge was to have a set of tools and methodology that made better use of resources and allowed us to manage our risks,” he says.
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He began by training UNOPS staff in project management and developing a formal methodology that focuses on detailed project planning and mechanisms of project governance. “One of our key goals from the start was to make sure every project is properly planned before execution,” he says.
The method begins with an analysis of the project’s benefits and risks — including worker safety and the community’s needs — and whether the project aligns with the U.N.’s core goals. Fourteen tools define the project’s budget, schedule, risks, communication and stakeholder engagement strategies.
UNOPS launched the new project management group as a formal unit in June 2012. “In the beginning it was very hard, because it is not just a work change, it is a culture change, and people struggled to accept it,” he says.
But as the process started yielding stronger project outcomes, project teams began to embrace it. “Our projects are much more structured today than they were two years ago,” Mr. Vargas says. “We have more control and greater awareness when problems arise so we can take action right away.”
Along with enabling UNOPS to meet goals, the new structure allows for more effective measuring of the impact of projects. For example, after the tsunami in Sri Lanka, UNOPS launched a US$10.7 million project, funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development, to rebuild fishing harbors in the south of the country by 2013. Thanks to careful planning, stakeholder engagement and benefits management, the project team was able to show that the project was delivered on time and on budget — and determine that it created 105,000 labor days for the community and expanded the business of more than 4,000 fishermen.
UNOPS teams around the world are achieving similarly improved outcomes. “Our partners are happier with their projects, and they are more aware of the benefits of good project planning,” he says. “Managing projects better has helped us deliver that value to the final beneficiaries, the people and communities where the United Nations operates.”
Originally published on June 2014 in the PM Network magazine.
