A study of project management knowledge and sustainable outcomes in Thailand’s reproductive health projects

In Thailand, numerous reproductive health projects funded by both national and international agencies have been established in an attempt to mitigate reproductive health problems. Solving problems on reproductive health projects that only have temporary funding requires effective project management that hopefully leads to better long-term desired outcomes. This paper identifies the association between collaborative reproductive health (CRH) project management and sustainable outcomes. The Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) is employed to benchmark project management practices on four CRH projects in Thailand. The research methodology presented in this paper comprises of content analysis and questionnaire survey. It is evident that limited use of certain project management knowledge areas (PMKAs) affects CRH project implementation and success. The association between the use of PMKAs and sustainable outcomes on these projects is also presented. Scope, integration and quality management were found to be the most influential PMKAs for sustainable outcomes on CRH projects. Nevertheless, the projects showed a shortage of project management processes for PMKAs that were required to attain the outcomes.Jantanee Dumrak, Bassam Baroudi, Stephen Pulle