Utilising best practice in project planning and scheduling for projects success: Assessing the importance of a Botswana mining company's strategy-sensitive capital projects

The purpose of this study was to quantitatively assess the importance of employing best practices in project planning and scheduling on capital projects’ success in Botswana, using a mining company’s strategy-critical projects as a case study. Seventy-two (72) respondents who are employees of the mining company completed the questionnaire. The study purposefully selected a convenient sample of individuals involved in managing capital projects. Data was collected using a closed-ended questionnaire utilizing Google forms. The same data was analysed using descriptive statistics, ANOVA statistics, collinearity statistics, multiple regression and inferential analysis formed part of the statistics used with the aid of IBM SPSS Version 25. The results of multiple linear regression revealed that out of the three factors investigated, project planning and front-end planning are significant predictors of capital project success, while project scheduling techniques are not significant predictors of project success of capital projects at the mining company. Based on the findings derived from statistical analysis, the study concluded that project planning best practices have benefited capital projects at the mining company, although with a moderately high success rate. The study recommends that the mining company’s project team should be critical in selecting and applying the appropriate scheduling techniques that can enable effective monitoring and control of project tasks. In addition to this, more studies should be conducted focusing on a broader scope of the application of scheduling techniques on capital projects’ success.