Effect of Project Team Communication on Performance of Poverty Reduction Projects in Rwanda: A Case Study of Rural Sector Support Project

Across the world, government and non-Government funded projects are embracing the practice of team communication in anticipation that this will translate into improved performance. Attention is given to the practice of team communication since it joins the organization members together in order to achieve common objectives. It is the most important factor in organization functions, and without it, there is no production. In the project environment, a Project Manager may spend ninety percent or more of his or her time communicating. Effective project team communications ensure that the right information get to the right person at the right time and in a cost-effective manner. The problem is, despite a consensus among scholars, researchers and managers that team communication leads to project performance, there are still cases of project failure Worldwide especially in Rwanda where the poverty reduction projects failure rate was over 60 % generally in Africa and specifically 70 % in Rwanda until 2013 as reported by World Bank Report of June 2013. The general objective of this study was to assess the effect of team communication on performance of poverty reduction projects in Rwanda. It adopted descriptive design. The target population of this study was the team members of Rural Sector Support Project and beneficiaries. This included 96 employees considered as the Rural Sector Support Project team and 235 farmers cultivating the marshlands in Gatsibo district, a sample size of 182 respondents has been calculated using Yamane Yalo formula. Quantitative data were collected using questionnaires. Data presentation was done using tables of frequency for ease of understanding and interpretations. Statistical Package for Social Sciences was used to execute simple linear regressions. Correlation analysis was used to describe the effect of project team communication on performance of poverty reduction projects in Rwanda. The study concluded that communication channels have an effect on performance of Rural Sector Support Project. The team communication practices influence performance of Rural Sector Support Project at the level of 62.3 % hence a significant relationship between team communication practices and performance of Rural Sector Support Project. Communication planning is influencing the performance of Rural Sector support project at the level of 68.8 %. Therefore there is a significant relationship between communication planning and performance of Rural Sector support project. The researcher recommends the project managers and superiors to strengthen and facilitate the communication channels within and out of the organization to make the communication effective, an enhancement of the internal team communication practices like project team members meeting, management meeting, clarification of schedule of work and feedback provision among the project team members and allocation of communication budget and establish a clear flow a clear flow of information from top to down and down to top so as to ensure the effective sharing of the information about project concerns.