CHALLENGES OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT PRACTICE IN ETHIOPIAN AIRPORTS INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS

The main purpose of the study was to identify and evaluate the challenges encountered
through project management practices in Ethiopian Airports Infrastructure development
projects. The study aims to point out these difficulties and thus improve the project
management practice in order to benefit from the findings. A descriptive research method
was used in order to achieve the intended purpose of the study. Questionnaire, interview and
review were used for the purpose of collecting required data for the study. The Questionnaire
survey were collected from the Ethiopian Airport employees who are directly involved in
infrastructure development project planning, Executing and controlling. Purposive sampling
technique was employed in selecting the samples. The data were analyzed using software
Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS V.20) to generate mean, frequencies, standard
deviation and percentages of the statics. The study found out that among 45 challenging
factors identified in the literature participants are agreed on 18 factors as a significant
challenge in projects they have been involved recently. Again ten of the identified factors are
the major significant challenging factors these are; These are Lack of Project Management
Skills and training in project management; Unexpected events with no effective response
possible; Project schedule delays; Changing requirements late in the project and continuing
change requests; Low commitment of Stakeholders towards planned projects;