The contribution of Project Team Personal Competence to Sustainable Outcomes in Development Projects

Projects are undertaken to serve the particular purposes of organizations. Many projects focus on having monetary benefits, but some projects are non-profit oriented and funded by international or national non-governmental organizations (NGOs) or donors to serve the development of communities. These funded projects are usually established in many disciplines including health, environment, economics, education, social and human rights in countries where the welfare of the population is deficient. From perspectives of project teams and sponsors, having a project-oriented approach allows more project control over their available resources and expected outcomes, especially long-term or sustainable outcomes. In this study, the term 'sustainable outcomes' refers to project activities and their outcomes that survive after the termination of external funding. Sustainable outcomes are derived from the maintenance of benefits generated from an initial project, the continuation of project activities within a new organization, and the maintenance of benefits realization. The sustainable outcomes are impacted by abilities to carry out both ongoing and long-term implementation. Therefore, it is important to ensure that personal competence in development projects contribute to sustainable outcomes. This study employs a correlation coefficient analyses to identify personal competence of project team members that contribute to achieving sustainable outcomes. Seventy-five respondents from development projects participated in the questionnaire survey. The research findings show that each of the sustainable outcome domain required different combinations of personal competence attributes.