PROJECT MANAGEMENT PRACTICES AND PERFORMANCE OF URBAN ROADS INFRASTRUCTURE IN NAIROBI CITY COUNTY, KENYA
Abstract
Purpose: The study examined the effect of project management practices on the performance of urban road infrastructure projects in Nairobi City County, Kenya, specifically focusing on project planning, project monitoring, stakeholder management, and risk management.
Statement of the Problem: Despite heavy investment by KURA in Nairobi City County, over 68% of road projects exceed contract sums, 62% record time overruns, and poor supervision reduces expected road lifespan by up to 40%. These persistent challenges, despite adoption of project management practices, signal critical gaps in their effective application and underscore the need for empirical investigation.
Methodology: The study adopted a descriptive research design targeting 183 respondents, 97 project managers, 32 resident engineers, and 54 KURA officials, from which 124 were selected through stratified random sampling. Semi-structured questionnaires generated both qualitative and quantitative data, analyzed using thematic analysis and SPSS version 28 respectively, through descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation, and multiple linear regression.
Findings: Project planning (β = 0.270, p = 0.023), project monitoring (β = 0.263, p = 0.000), stakeholder management (β = 0.241, p = 0.000), and risk management (β = 0.157, p = 0.011) all had positive and significant effects on project performance. Collectively, the four practices explained 67.7% of variance in performance (R² = 0.677, F = 99.161, p < 0.001).
Conclusions: Project management practices positively and significantly influence urban road infrastructure performance, and strengthening these practices leads to measurable improvements in project timelines, budget adherence, and quality outcomes.
Recommendations: Project managers should develop communication plans at project inception, adopt structured monitoring frameworks with real-time tracking tools, ensure systematic stakeholder identification and engagement, and embed proactive risk mitigation measures into all project execution plans.
Keywords: Project Management Practices, Performance, Urban Roads Infrastructure, Nairobi City County, Kenya
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