Project Management Success in a Troubled Environment: The Mobile Telecommunications Sector in Mogadishu, Somalia

This paper considers the nature of project management success in Somalia in the mobile telecommunications sector during a period of warfare. The principal form of research was personal interviews of 52 business owners and managers in Mogadishu, the capital city of the country. It was found that most businesses were operated on the basis of international best practice despite the fact that the ongoing violence caused people to behave in different ways and to have different priorities. Compromises were made by managers to the conditions they faced but a commitment to ultimate profitability was maintained.