VISION STATEMENT
from InnoLead Consulting Managing Director, Oabona Kgengwenyane (MEng)
What do you see InnoLead Consulting doing in the next 10 years? InnoLead Consulting has succeeded in positioning itself as the leading provider of corporate strategy and project management (PM) services in Botswana. Our aim is to focus on exploring ways of assisting Botswana government to grow her PM maturity and improved success rate on capital projects. This is aligned to our original vision of supporting “execution capabilities” across the Botswana economy for accelerated economic development. The second phase of the 10 years would be regional expansion where InnoLead Consulting would participate in regional economies such as Zambia and Namibia. InnoLead Consulting would become a “PM services” organisation grown and bred in Botswana but with a regional outreach.
Identify critical areas where there is urgent need to implement PM processes in order to make our systems more productive and detail how such implementation would be undertaken. The past 10 years have seen Botswana experiencing major project failures with cost and time overruns being the order of the day for new stadia, airports, power stations etc. InnoLead Consulting has a vision of supporting Botswana government with the application of best practice PM process within its structures to improve project delivery. Such intervention could include developing the processes, implementing comprehensive PM offces and building required competencies including professional accreditations for project teams.
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In your judgement, which country has the best PM model in the world and what would it take for Botswana to attain similar status. It is very diffcult to single out one country but clearly the developed world has much more matured PM processes than a country like Botswana.
Within the context of successes it has notched up in terms of PM, what can Botswana offer to the rest of the continent and how do we get the continent to appreciate what we have to offer? I think it is for a company like InnoLead Consulting to reach out to other regional countries and showcase its experience and capabilities. As Botswana, we are much advanced now in PM compared to other countries outside South Africa. We are currently – in an organic manner, exploring the regional markets to position InnoLead Consulting and support other countries in the region with building up PM capabilities and improving their economic development agendas.
Is there any way at all that elements of PM can be introduced into the public school system to enhance educational productivity in its entirety? Indeed and it is high time such practical management tools get introduced at an early stage of our education system. Also PM is a life skill that is a necessity for almost all types of organisations. We have already started supporting tertiary education institutions such as the University of Botswana with lecturing
visits to some of their programmes to improve their relevance to industry. It would be greatly welcome if it can be cascaded right down to primary schools levels.
The African Development Bank stresses the need for African countries to march in lockstep hence its emphasis on regional integration. Currently, what integration or collaboration is there at the level of PM? I’m not aware of any collaboration apart from individual organisations. As an example in 2010, I was invited as guest speaker at the launch of the Zimbabwe Chapter of the Project Management Institute (PMI). We agreed at the forum that more collaboration is required.
In a hypothetical scenario where all the PM fundamentals are in place in all sectors of the Botswana economy, what becomes of InnoLead Consulting? Would there still be need for your services? PM is a management practice that will always be required. Some organisations need it on seasonal basis as projects come and go, hence the need to outsource to frms such as InnoLead Consulting. We offer clients a smart way of managing their projects such that they can then focus on their core business. As experts in PM we tend to be more qualifed and bring in-depth experience to add to much desired projects success rates. Currently, we are assisting some mining companies with resourcing their projects and therefore do not have to worry about increasing their payroll, as projects are seasonal depending on need and/or economic climate.