Project Management is Key to Economic Transformation

Innolead Consulting, a specialist Project Management firm has naturally positioned itself at the forefront of economic transformation in Botswana. This has been affirmed by the Consulting Company’s Director of Operations Mr Chilipi Mogasha when sharing his views regarding economic sophistication and transformation. “Our lives have been shaken to their very core by technological change, with the 4^th Industrial revolution transforming economies as never before. Change has come and continues to come at an unprecedented speed and breadth, with a resultant everlasting impact on products we produce, how and where we produce them. Transformation will surely proceed at differing speeds depending on the size and form of the economy, but certainly no single economy or part of the world will be spared. The conventional understanding of transformation has been well documented and publicised, but determinant factors of growth are how a nation participates in the transformation”, he expressed.

Chilipi highlighted that before we were where we are today in the transformation journey and the wider industrialisation, there was the internet bubble, then a tech boom, followed by rapid growth of Artificial Intelligence and ultimately we arrived to this state of transformation. One single ingredient has been a fixture in the mixture of all these: a relentless focus and excellence in Project Management. In Mr Mogasha’s words, “The Tech Boom was strongly founded on excellence in planning projects and ruthless rapid execution. In fact, most tech entrepreneurs admit that they are not of any special level of intelligence, but rather from an early age they have developed skills to manage each and every one of their endeavours, concepts or ideas. Many Tech Entrepreneurs managing projects exceptionally well bred more tech projects and even more tech entrepreneurs: from agro processing, telecommunications, logistics and supply chain, personal computers, home appliances, automobile, mining and all the way to education. The critical mass of these projects and entrepreneurs coupled with excellence in project management lead to economic sophistication and changed things totally, forever”.

In the Botswana context, transformation is happening without much of our participation into it largely due to lack of significant and relentless investment in project management. The Government and the private sector alike equally hope for better economic fortunes for this beautiful country of ours and its lovely people, but without better project management, without rapid and meticulously managed execution it shall be a lonely and unnecessarily long road to achievement of all the glory that this country and its people deserve. Innolead’s Managing Director, Mr Oabona Michael Kgengwenyane highlighted that Botswana is developing so many economic assets which can potentially change fortunes for the people of this republic if well managed. According to Kgengwenyane, it is of critical importance that the development of these assets be managed by well skilled and experienced project professionals. “Project Management is not and will never be about assigning a department’s employee or a contractor to a project, it takes years of experience and delivery of several complex projects before any professional can ultimately feel confident enough to be a Project Manager. Many of the world’s most sophisticated economies have embraced this and thrived for the longest time, even during times of doom they have thrived”, said Kgengwenyane.

“We are positive that finally the Government and the private sector will invest in project management, relentlessly over a sustainable period of time. I believe each and every Motswana is looking forward to a positive unfolding of this transformation journey we are embarking on as a country, it’s an exciting journey, and project management is the trusted vehicle to get us to the promised glory”.

Innolead Consulting will look to make a massive contribution towards Botswana’s young transformation journey, having previously facilitated the development of the Vision 2036 with the presidential task force back in 2015. “In 2015 we facilitated a very productive strategic planning retreat for the Vision 2036 presidential task force. The outcome of the retreat was the Vision 2036, the implementation of which will propel us towards near economic sophistication”.

The consulting company’s leadership believes that it will take a sharp focus on successful projects delivery in order to turn around the current pessimism about Botswana’s economic prospects. “We have been Botswana’s most trusted project management partner for the past 18 years. We believe at this pivotal hour of Botswana’s development journey, we need to step up in a major way and add great value with the single most important ingredient of the journey: Project Management”, expressed Kgenwenyane. Project Management specialist firm will continue to inculcate the importance and essence of project managing the envisioned transformation and sophistication of Botswana’s economy with training interventions such as PRINCE 2 Certificate, Project Management Professional (PMP) certificate, Project Controls and Project Management Essentials.

Thabiso Ntlole is a Consultant at InnoLead Consulting offering Management Consultancy and Corporate Training Solutions. He can be contacted on +267 3909102 and innolead@innolead.co.bw