Kehittävä projekti

Abstract

Maaseutuyrityksille suunnattujen markkinoinnin koulutus- ja kehittämisprojektien tuloksellisuutta voidaan lisätä projektinohjausta ja kehittämisen malleja kehittämällä. Avainasemassa ovat erityisesti kehittämispalvelujen rahoituksen pitkäjänteisyys, käytössä olevien koulutusmallien uudistaminen ja uusien opettamistapojen kokeilu kehittämistyössä. Tulokset on saatu Maatalouden taloudellisessa tutkimuslaitoksessa tehdyssä tutkimuksessa, joka käsittelee maaseudulla toimiville elintarvikealan pienyrityksille markkinoinnin koulutus- ja kehittämispalveluja tuottavien projektien toimintaa. Tutkimukseen osallistui 73 maaseudun kehittämishankkeissa toimivaa projektinvetäjää. Tutkimuksessa selvitettiin projektisuunnitteluun, koulutusohjelmiin ja projektien ohjaukseen liittyviä kysymyksiä. Tutkimuksessa tarkasteltiin myös vetäjien omaa työtyytyväisyyttä, mm. vetäjille suunnatun koulutuksen laatua, koulutukseen osallistumista sekä projektien toimintaolosuhteita. Tutkimuksen mukaan projektien vetäjät ovat melko tyytyväisiä työhönsä. Työolosuhteiden osalta eniten kehitettävää on henkilöstön osaamisessa ja projektien rahoitukseen liittyvissä kysymyksissä. Tutkimuksen perusteella voidaan esittää arvio, että projektien kouluttajien markkinointiosaaminen voi tietyissä tilanteissa olla puutteellinen. Tämä johtuu siitä, että vetäjät ovat osallistuneet markkinoinnin koulutukseen vähemmän kuin muuhun koulutukseen. Osaamisen kapea-alaisuus muodostuu yleensä ongelmaksi vasta siinä tapauksessa, että projektissa esimerkiksi rahoituksellisista syistä ei voida käyttää ulkopuolista asiantuntemusta. Nykykäytännössä markkinoinnin koulutus saa usein myös liian vähäisen painoarvon, jos sitä toteutetaan ainoastaan tuotekehityksen ja laatujärjestelmien kehittämisen yhteydessä. Tutkimuksesta kävi selvästi ilmi, että etenkin aloittelevat projektinvetäjät tarvitsevat nykyistä enemmän tukea työlleen. Kehittämispalvelujen tavoitteena oleva maaseutuyritysten markkinointiosaamisen kehittäminen ei nykyisellään toteudu kehittämisprojekteissa. Tutkimuksen mukaan projekteissa käsitellyt koulutusohjelmat ovat usein liian laajoja käytettävissä olevaan aikaan verrattuna ja koulutus muodostuu helposti pintapuoliseksi. Kun projektiin osallistuvat yritykset ovat lisäksi osaamisensa ja liiketoimintansa kehitysvaiheen suhteen liian erilaisia, käsiteltävistä asioista ei muodostu oppimisen kannalta mielekästä kokonaisuutta. Virheellisesti suunniteltu koulutus johtaa siihen, että teorian itsenäinen soveltaminen käytäntöön osoittautuu myöhemmin hankalaksi. Hanketoimintaa suunnitellaan liian usein kehittämisinterventioita tuottavien organisaatioiden hallinnollisesta lähtökohdasta käsin. Vallitsevana käytäntönä näyttää olevan, että projektisuunnitelmat lyödään lukkoon liian aikaisin rahoituksen hankkimisvaiheessa. Kun yritykset eivät pääse vaikuttamaan projektin tavoitteiden suunnitteluun, siitä aiheutuu ongelmia myöhemmälle oppimiselle. Yritysten sitoutumista voidaan parantaa ottamalla yritykset mukaan hankkeen suunnitteluun. Myös yritysten omaa vastuuta hanketoiminnassa on korostettava. Kehittämistoimintaa suunniteltaessa on otettava huomioon, että maaseutuyritys on koulutus- ja neuvontapalvelujen käyttäjänä erilainen kuin useat muut yritykset. Markkinointiosaaminen yrityksissä on usein puutteellista ja kapea-alaista. Useat yrittäjät ovat tottumattomia käsittelemään erilaisia markkinoinnin erityiskysymyksiä, joten yrityskohtaisen konsultoinnin roolia kehittämispalveluiden tarjonnassa tulisi tulevaisuudessa korostaa aikaisempaa enemmän.

In this study the quality of marketing training and developing programs are examined from project manager's point of view. The research illustrates how marketing training is designed and managed in the rural development project. The development of marketing competence is usually considered as a process variable of firm performance, and as an entrepreneur's individual quality or trait. In addition, from the rural development program's point of view, the project learning environment is also important. There are several concepts almost similar to project manager, which can be used to make profiles of what the project training manager's work and responsibilities are: for instance, adviser, helper, counsellor, coordinator, or project leader. In any case, the perceived importance of rural development interventions are to motivate and promote enterprise skills and capabilities on rural firms. There are also a wide variety of education and developing systems, and instruments at service for entrepreneurs when they want to develop their marketing skills. The concept of facilitative intervention resides that the effectiveness of marketing development programs are related to degree to which they facilitate firms' and entrepreneurs' goal attainments and, for instance, the solution of their real marketing problems. More over, consultant's way of thinking, a philosophy of how to give help, and overall strategy and tactics of interventions are critical for successful developing programs. Key concepts on successful training and developing services are well-trained and motivated project personnel, as well as entrepreneur's motivation, commitment, participation, involvement, and co-operation. Entrepreneurs have to commit appropriate time to both long term and short term implementation programs. Entrepreneur's learning strategies and goal setting are the central points of process development. A well designed project supports motivation and commitment, and including improvements in attitude control often gives a person the opportunity to diagnose and solve problems. This means for instance, that before starting interventions, the client's level of insight, motivation, ability, and readiness to act ought to be specified. Development strategies, autonomy, and independence in project organisation are also important in customer-helper relationships and network organisations. Participants have to learn to work together across firm boundaries; the quality of networking frequently manifests itself whether creation of temporary project team is well working or not. These aspects in project planning are important, because the members of development project team usually have multidisciplinary backgrounds. The empirical analysis is based on the data of 73 marketing development projects. The data were obtained via structured questionnaires from project managers with the response rate of 45%. In empirical analysis, the learning environment, which includes personnel's working satisfaction and project manager's managerial styles, are examined. Managerial model was operationalised by the project planning, the motivation management, the management of conflicts and disagreements, and the management of entrepreneur's commitment. Motivation management was defined by information and communication, feedback, persuasion, and participation in goal setting. The role ambiguity, the role conflict, and goal conflict are examples of conflicts appearing in projects. Typology of managerial models was formed according to the project manager's managerial style. The project performance was evaluated by the project manager's perceived assessment on their project-succeeding rate. The data, concerning the questions of project manager's managerial style, were analysed by principal component analysis. Groups were obtained by Ward's method in the cluster analysis. Three groups were obtained in the cluster analysis. The groups differed by project manager's managerial styles. Project managers, who were uncertain of their roles, used fewer managerial instruments compared to other groups. Their managerial style consists of minor usage of motivation means, and their conflict solving methods are not open. The second group emphasizes the importance of interaction. Project manager, that belongs to this group, motivated and handled conflicts arising in the project openly. The third group had framed their role as a project manager. This group used relatively fewer managerial means compared to the group which emphasizes interaction, but only little more than the first group which seems to be uncertain of its role as a project manager. The role framing and the role uncertainty are associated to project conflicts, which appeared during the project. By research results, the question of heterogeneity of training and development group is problematic on the rural training and development program. In generally, if firms differ too much in their current problems and business situation, as they usually do, entrepreneurs don't have full benefit from a program as they do in more homogenous groups. Heterogeneous project groups are related to unfocused education programs, which means that the contents of programs are usually too wide compared to time they last. Wide and common programs are inefficient because they don't provide participating entrepreneurs with the skills, which firms need. In this data the most heterogeneous project groups were related to more focused marketing training programs (interaction emphasis) and the most homogenous groups were related to unfocused marketing training and development programs (role uncertainty and role framing). In most of projects, entrepreneurs are not taken to the planning process in the earliest phase of planning of training goals and courses, which usually means that the control of entrepreneur's commitment is experienced as a difficulty by a project manager. In order to get better learning results the entrepreneurs should be taken to the planning process much earlier. The interaction emphasis is related to dissatisfaction with the project performance. The result is not consistent with finding that the interaction emphasis is related to the better learning conditions. There are several reasons for failures appearing in the group of interaction emphasis. The first reason is that they indicated to have less financial recourses at their disposal, and the group was the most dissatisfied with the support of the managerial group too. The groups they trained were heterogeneous, and there were approximately more number of firms in their projects. As a conclusion of the study, we propose that project managers' own actions are not enough if there are problems at the basics of the project. As basic matters which ought to be taken care of are project planning, and increasing entrepreneur's involvement in the planning phase, and careful analysis of firms educational and training need. Personal work satisfaction of project managers' was good. Possibilities to participate in education are good, but there was most frequently something to improve in marketing education. Investment for project managers' education should be taken account in project development. Lack of money and time are among the most critical things affecting the project trainer's personal working satisfaction and learning conditions in project. Lack of time means that the planning process with firms remains insufficient. The financing instances ought to approve the education to the financing plan of the project. Project managers are also unaware of both the managerial group's and their own roles in development projects. Because of that, the roles ought to be defined before the project is started. Experienced project trainers could work as mentors for inexperienced in project training.