Data sampling

A sample is “a smaller (but hopefully representative) collection of units from a population used to determine truths about that population and the sampling frame is the list from which the potential respondents are drawn” (Field, 2005). In this research the general study is developing economies and Nigeria has been selected as the single example, because of its characteristics (see chapter one). Furthermore, a minimum of four LIPs from any of the major areas of transportation, utility, electricity, buildings will be randomly selected for this study based on access and availability of respondents; provided they meet the criteria of being categorized as being an LIP (see chapter one). See table 4.1 for the prospective respondents and the information needed from each category of people:

Prospective Respondents Relevant data Beneficiaries such as community

leaders/members, government other senior management members from contractors/suppliers

Data about practicing of PG principles in planning, executing and closing stages of the LIP Table 4.1: Prospective respondents and the information relevant from them The data from each of these different prospective respondents are important, as it will help in verifying the consistency of the data collected from different respondents on a given LIP. The documents needed, from each LIP will also

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have different level of relevance and help in verifying the consistency of the data collected from interviews. See table 4.2 for details on this.

Project Document Relevant data

Progress reports, logs and Data about what happened in executing and closing stages of the LIP

Project plan Data about what happened in

planning stage of the LIP

Closing and review reports Data about what happened in closing stage of the LIP

Table 4.2: Project documents and their relevance 4.2.5 Choice of tools

In obtaining the project documents; secondary data, the relevant organisations that have been identified as the source of them will directly provide the documents. The organisations are Bureau for Public Enterprise of Nigeria (BPEN) and the Budget Monitoring and Price Intelligence Unit (BMPIU). On the other hand, to obtain primary data, it means that we will need to either use; questionnaires focus groups, interviews or a combination of them.

With interviews, it will be possible to ensure that interactional recording can take place in the field by use of audio recorders during interviews to allow the interviewer collect rich data, whereas, with questionnaires such possibilities are eliminated (Woodring, et al 2006). However, open-ended questionnaires could also be a source of rich data (William 1993). But, due to poor return rate to paper questionnaires during the pilot study carried out in this research in Nigeria with senior management, sponsors and consultants it is too risky for this research to depend on open questionnaires. The other questionnaire distribution forms available include; telephone or web based questionnaires.

The web-based questionnaire is not really feasible for this research because reliable access to Internet is very scarce in Nigeria while telephone-based questionnaires will have to rely on the respondent being free and interested enough to focus on the questionnaire to give reliable response. Results from the pilot study suggests that there is likelihood that the senior management staff in LIPs will not give dedicated attention to the telephone interviews especially if they are busy managing several projects. Also due to lack of

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physical interaction during telephone conversation, the respondents are likely to be less engaged and we cannot deduce much from their body language.

Besides, many of the participants during the pilot study suggested that they could not find time to complete it but evidence show that they could not border themselves with completing it as the same people were able to sit through an hour long personal interview. Therefore, the use of telephone, web-based or paper questionnaires are unlikely to generate reliable and meaningful exploratory data if used in the main data collection exercise; thus, questionnaire will not be used for this research.

Consequently, we are left with the options of interviews and focus groups.

Focus group meetings entails gathering the respondents for each project together; either physically or by conference calling; to be able to identify the differences and similarities in their opinions and could be a good option because of the following advantages (Woodring, et al 2006):

• They are useful to obtain detailed information about personal and group feelings, perceptions and opinions

• They can save time and money compared to individual interviews

• They can provide a broader range of information

• They offer the opportunity to seek clarification

• They provide useful material e.g. quotes for public relations publication and presentations

Being that these are busy people and could be working on the same projects, it will be difficult to gather all of them and even more difficult to avoid their responses being biased by the presence of other colleagues or competitors in the field; as they may have sensitive information to give. Also the confidentiality and anonymity of the respondents cannot be guaranteed using this technique. Therefore, the focus groups are not a good option to be used in the data collection exercise.

Due to the exploratory nature of this research in exploring the relationship between adhering to PG principles and success of LIPs in Nigeria, it is vital to gather as much relevant information as available to this research. Hence,

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using interviews; especially personal; is very suitable for this research. The advantage of using the personal interview technique is that it allows the interviewer to clarify unclear responses and allows more rapport between them and the respondent. However, it has the disadvantage of generate a lot of work, which can make the coding, and analysis of the data difficult and time consuming; especially with the research having time constraints.

Interviews can also provide structured, semi-structured and unstructured approaches depending on how much data is needed and the analytical technique that is to deploy (William 1993). The unstructured interview may provide access to more details but at the same time could produce data that are irrelevant to the research objective, thus creating large volume of data to be analysed (William 1993). The structured interview on the other hand can limit the amount of information to the size desired but can also restrict the interviewer from collecting other relevant information that has not been included in the original questions (Kvale 1996). Therefore a combination of these two types of interview tools will produce a good balance to explore their advantages and eliminate their disadvantages; this type of interview is called the semi-structured interview (Kvale 1996).

Interviews can also be conducted through the telephone to reduce cost as well as ensure that more interviews can take place in a shorter time, as travel time will be eliminated using. However, the telephone interview can also be expensive due to calling rates. Also, interaction levels between interviewer and respondent will be less than in personal interview and interruption in conversations may affect the interview due to poor telephone network service. Therefore, telephone interviews are not a very good option for this research.

In summary, it is clear from the above evaluation of the options available to this research for collection of suitable data that, semi-structured personal interviews will be the most suited options to supplement the documents that will be collected from projects. This will save cost and time for this process whilst ensuring that rich and reliable data is collected. The semi-structured personal interviews will be used to investigate the relationship between

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performance of LIPs and their adherence to project governance principles.

Senior management staff of owner, contractor, consultants organisation involved in the decision making process of each project will be interviewed.

The selection and the number of personnel to be interviewed for each of the LIPs will be based on their level of relevance in the project and availability during the progression of this research, as most of them are expected to have busy schedules. See table 4.3 for some of the questions that will be used in the interviews and how they were formulated.

Themes Relevant Interview questions

The board/steering committee has overall responsibility for governance of project management.

Who has/had the overall responsibility for making decision and governing the project?

The roles, responsibilities and performance criteria for the governance of project management are controls, are applied throughout the project life cycle.

What level of monitoring, control and structured directing was applied throughout the project and how was this achieved?

A coherent and supportive relationship is demonstrated between the overall business strategy and the project authorisation points are recorded and communicated.

Was there a plan for the project? If yes, were there any review and authorisation points and how well did this run during this project?

Was review decisions recorded and communicated properly?

Members of delegated authorisation bodies have sufficient representation, competence, authority and resources to enable them to make appropriate decisions.

Were the members of all delegated authorisation bodies (stakeholders) represented in project steering committee? If yes, did they have the competence, resources and authority to make appropriate decisions?

Table 4.3a: Semi Structured Interview Questions Formation

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Themes Relevant Interview questions

The project business case is supported by relevant and realistic information that provides a reliable basis for making authorisation decisions.

Was there realistic information provided in support of the justification for the project at the approval point? If yes what were these information?

The board or its delegated agents decide when independent scrutiny of projects and project management systems is required, and implement such scrutiny accordingly.

Did the steering committee have or delegate to anybody the authority to decide when independent scrutiny of project and the management system should be done? If yes did they use it in this criteria? If yes, please can you run us through the much you importance to the organisation and in a manner that fosters trust.

What was the level of each project stakeholder’s engagement with the project? And what were the criteria for this?

Projects are closed when they are no longer justified as part of the organisation’s portfolio

What would be the decision on the project if it is no longer justified as part of the portfolio and objective of this organisation? How will this be

Table 4.3b: Semi Structured Interview Questions Formation

In addition, just as identified after evaluation of several options for generating data for this research, similar research that explored the importance of PG and examined its adherence all used semi-structured interviews. William et al (2009) used semi-structured interviews reinforced by pre-supplied questionnaires but conducted the research with organisations that have very high need for confidentiality of the project documents so could not be granted access to any secondary data (see William et al 2009). This suggests that

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these techniques can be suitable for data collection in this area but is access to documents is possible then that could also be a possible source. However, Bekker et al (2008) used both primary case (personal interviews and nominal group technique) and secondary data (sourced form literature and their performance evaluated against the principles of the CPGF) for his research on the impact of project governance principles on project performance. The research had access to a lot of data from websites, which contained relevant data to help in the study of fifteen projects cases, hence the use of secondary data but used primary data study in two cases where the had access to in-depth personal interviews. Thus, considering that this research has access to documents related to projects this would be a good source of data to support the data from semi-structured personal interviews.

Project governance could also represent different meanings to different members of the project. For example the following project participants can perceive project governance as the following: See subsection 3.

The implication of this is that when the different participants are asked about the practice of good project governance directly their understanding of this is not likely to be the same. Therefore, it will be more productive to ask them indirectly.