Managing Projects in Decentralised Organisations: Tracking Humanitarian Fleets

Published 29 Mar 2012
Reference 5817
Topic Operations
Region Global
Length 10 page(s)
Language English
Summary

Managing projects in decentralised organisations is challenging. IHO is a medium-sized international humanitarian organisation. To improve fleet management in IHO, the goal is to implement vehicle tracking technology. A successful pilot project is followed by a failed rollout. The case examines the managerial and organisational issues affecting the project’s performance.

Teaching objectives

1. Examine the challenges of project management in a decentralised (humanitarian) organisation operating in an atypical (developing world) context. 2. Highlight the managerial issues affecting a project rollout involving two parties (the logistics function and relief and development programmes in the field) with diverging objectives. 3. Provide a basis for discussion on the transfer of best (management) practices between the humanitarian and private sectors.

Keywords
  • project management with uncertainty
  • decentralised decision-making
  • humanitarian logistics
  • fleet management
  • operations in emerging economies
  • performance measurement
  • Q31112