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The importance of project management maturity models has taken on greater significance in assessing an organization’s current capabilities. These models are used to assess the maturity of an organization and to ensure its efficiency and uniformity in delivering projects. In addition, these models are used to further improve the performance of the organization. The objectives of this study are to determine the degree to which project management knowledge areas have been adopted by one public agency in terms of project integration, scope, time, cost, quality, human resource, communication, risk, and procurement and to assess the current maturity level of project management as perceived by project managers. A total of 65 project managers and project team members were selected as respondents for the study. Descriptive analysis was applied to answer the research questions and objectives. The study revealed that almost 90% of the respondents felt that understanding the nine project management knowledge ...

In an effort to proactively identify and mitigate potential project management problems in construction projects, the United States General Service Administration (GSA) developed and implemented a project peer review process in conjunction with the University of Colorado at Boulder and Peter Associates. This paper discusses the peer review process and analyzes whether the questions used in the review can predict project success, as measured by cost, schedule, and the project peer rating, for 22 past projects. The data were analyzed retrospectively by using the point biserial correlation coefficient. The results indicate that project peer reviews conducted during the construction process can be used to assess and predict final project performance. Questions regarding working relationships, communication, timing, project controls, and relational approaches to project participants had significant correlations with project success. In addition, the relationship between the designer and contractor appe...

A project delivery system (PDS), as one of the crucial factors of project success, not only influences innovation in the construction industry but also strongly affects project schedules, costs, and quality. Traditionally, decision making concerning PDSs have often been made by owners or other decision makers on the basis of these individuals’ experiences, which often fail to reflect the inherent laws and dependencies among various factors and different PDSs. Recent studies on PDS selection have primarily focused on owners’ characteristics, project characteristics, and external environment. This study was first conducted exclusively on the project characteristics as the continuation of research on owners’ and contractors’ characteristics. First, 16 project characteristic factors affecting the PDS selection were described through a literature review. Next, project characteristics data from 101 domestic projects were collected using a questionnaire survey to determine the key factors that affect the...

Traditional project design and construction delivery is segmental. Researchers and practitioners often cite the separation, or “silo effect,” as a reason for poor project outcomes. In response, new forms of integrated contracts have emerged, fostering more collaborative efforts and a focus on successful project outcomes, instead of individual organizational outcomes. Relational contract theory provides a basis for understanding these new integrated forms of agreement through a set of relational contracting norms. This study operationalizes the relational contracting norms designed to measure project integration. The norms and their dimensions were developed through a rigorous construct mapping methodology and then tested, analyzed, and validated with a survey of owners and owners’ representatives from 314 completed projects using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. The study validates the measures and demonstrates the potential that the measures have to illuminate the nature of relationa...

The construction of public schools is a complex endeavor due to the involvement of multiple and diverse parties, funding and budgetary concerns, and statutory limitations imposed by local, state, and federal agencies, all of which serve to increase project risk. Project delivery methods using distinctive procedures to manage the design and construction process have been developed to reduce risk and improve project performance. To increase the probability of successful project outcomes, those responsible for public school construction require conclusive delivery method performance data. Completed in 2014, this two-year study used actual construction documents from 137 southeastern public schools to analyze and determine project delivery method cost, time, quality, and claims performance. The analysis indicated that performance of the Design-Bid-Build (DBB) method was significantly superior across all cost metrics, whereas the Construction Manager at Risk (CM at Risk) method produced higher levels o...

This paper presents a method for project cost contingency forecasting and updating based on Value at Risk at a certain confidence level during project execution. The method is applied and demonstrated through an ongoing tunnel construction project lasting for several years. The method makes use of newly available information as the project progresses, and project daily cost and daily progress are analyzed and used as inputs for the quantitative model. The forecasts compare favorably with actual contingencies. The method provides opportunities to update contingencies at project milestones and to allocate appropriate contingencies at different project phases. This is beneficial for major companies which run multiple projects lasting for years, allowing them to set appropriate contingencies on certain timelines and to improve resource utilization.

Developing a reliable project cost estimate is a challenge for any state highway agency (SHA), especially at the conceptual stage. A conceptual estimate is defined in this paper as the estimate prepared at the point at which only 30% of the design is complete. This paper describes a statistical approach to producing a reliable conceptual cost estimate when few project design details have been finalized and many assumptions still form the basis of the estimate. This approach used an analysis similar to the program evaluation and review technique (PERT), which is more commonly used in project scheduling, to assign certainty factors to cost estimates. The approach uses a combination of historical bid data for major roadway items whose quantities can be estimated early in the development process and historical percentages for other major components of the project, called allowance and contingency factors. The paper focuses on (1) the methodology developed to analyze the historical bid data; (2) the analysis o...

Reliable cost estimates are essential for effective project control and the management of cash flows within the project and at the company level. Conventional approaches to project cost forecasting, which rely on detailed information developed for a specific project (the bottom-up estimate or inside view), often result in cost overruns. It is argued here that the inside-view project cost estimates should be adjusted by combining them with the outside (or top-down) view of the project, which is based on statistical models of historical project data. This paper presents a probabilistic cost forecasting method and a framework for an adaptive combination of the inside view and the outside view forecasts of project cost using Bayesian inference and the Bayesian model averaging technique. During the project execution phase, the Bayesian adaptive forecasting method incorporates into the predictions the actual performance data from earned value management and revises preproject cost estimates, making full use of ...

Projects must meet budget, schedule, safety, and quality goals to be regarded as a success. Many factors come into play, and many decisions are made that influence a project’s outcome. Today, owners are often faced with deciding between an execution strategy that emphasizes either project cost or project schedule. Such a decision may be made not once, but throughout the life of the project. Project teams, when required by the owner to make a cost-schedule trade-off, generate common sense ideas, best practices, and other means of achieving the desired trade-off through brainstorming sessions. This paper offers a tool for systematically identifying the techniques which are most effective in achieving the trade-off goal. Project teams can then use these techniques in a timely fashion to increase the likelihood of project success.

Project managers implement the concept of time contingency to consider uncertainty in duration estimates and prevent project completion delays. Some project managers also build a distribution of the project time contingency into the project activities to create a more manageable schedule. Generally, both the estimation and distribution of the project time contingency are conducted by using subjective approaches. Because the project schedule feasibility mainly depends on the variable behavior of the project activities, the estimate of project time contingency and its allocation at the activity level should be obtained by considering the performance variability of each activity rather than basing on human judgment. In this paper, the stochastic allocation of project allowances method, which is based on Monte Carlo simulation, is proposed to estimate the project time contingency and allocate it among the project activities. The application of this method to a three-span bridge project results in a fair alloc...

Choosing a project manager for a construction project—particularly, large projects—is a critical project decision. The selection process involves different criteria and should be in accordance with company policies and project specifications. Traditionally, potential candidates are interviewed and the most qualified are selected in compliance with company priorities and project conditions. Precise computing models that could take various candidates' information into consideration and then pinpoint the most qualified person with a high degree of accuracy would be beneficial. On the basis of the opinions of experienced construction company managers, this paper, through presenting a fuzzy system, identifies the important criteria in selecting a project manager. The proposed fuzzy system is based on IF-THEN rules; a genetic algorithm improves the overall accuracy as well as the functions used by the fuzzy system to make initial estimates of the cluster centers for fuzzy c-means clustering. Moreover, a back-propagation neutral network method was used to train the system. The optimal measures of the inference parameters were identified by calculating the system's output error and propagating this error within the system. After specifying the system parameters, the membership function parameters—which by means of clustering and projection were approximated—were tuned with the genetic algorithm. Results from this system in selecting project managers show its high capability in making high-quality personnel predictions.

As the construction industry expands from local markets to global markets, many construction and engineering firms have acquired tenders remotely from their home base. When allocating human resource for the management team of distant project sites, these firms have the strategies between assigning regular staff and hiring local temporary employees. Since management expenses and project risks may vary for these two strategies, it is important to make a favorable decision between the choices to mitigate project risks and achieve maximum benefits during the global expansion of construction companies. This paper first proposes a decision-making model for human resource allocation in remote construction projects by estimating "total project cost," which is the sum of total project expenses, expected project loss, and direct construction cost. Next, this study provides a case study of three remote construction projects to illustrate the usefulness of the proposed model. The case study results show that regular project administrators, who are able to reduce managerial flaws and cut down project losses, are favored over local ones. Regular site engineers, who hold lower level managerial responsibility, on the other hand, apparently lose their edge to local employees because of their high wages and relatively minor impact on overall project performance.

This paper presents two case studies that were conducted to illustrate the functionality and application of a decision support system for predicting the influence of decisions made by state highway agencies regarding important work zone project variables such as work window, work zone length, lane closure strategy, and contract incentives on the cost, duration, quality, safety, and public satisfaction of a particular project under consideration. The first case study describes in detail the operation and function of the three major levels of the proposed framework using a completed project, whereas the second case study provides an opportunity for the application of the decision support system to a work zone project in the planning stages using the input of the actual decision maker for the project.

The project development process is a critical component of highway projects. Decisions made during this phase have a significant impact on the final project outcomes. This paper describes a research project that studied this process and subsequently developed a method to help the highway project team improve the project development process. This method does so by proactively identifying risk sources based on the analysis of the project scope. This method uses a comprehensive list of scope elements with descriptions and a mechanism to evaluate quantitatively the scope elements' level of definition. Assessing the level of definition of each scope element and of the project as a whole allows the project team to determine the potential level of risk to which the project is exposed. The project team can then develop risk mitigation plans to respond to the potential high risk elements. The proposed method was tested on real completed and ongoing projects undertaken by experienced professionals. The method was well received by the subject matter experts, and a number of benefits were observed, including the use as an integrated checklist, a mechanism for monitoring the project development progress, as well as a means for improving communication and promoting alignment within the project team.

One of the key steps in the highway investment decision-making process is to conduct project evaluation. The existing project level life-cycle cost analysis approaches for estimating project benefi...

China is a new market to many international architectural, engineering, and construction (AEC) firms and it is not known what would be the likely project outcomes, based on different project management (PM) practices adopted. This research developed and tested five models to predict the likely project success levels, based on PM practices adopted by foreign AEC firms in China. Based on data obtained from 33 projects, multiple linear regression (MLR) models for predicting the performance of foreign managed projects in China were constructed. The models were tested against 13 new cases, and the results show that they are able to predict project outcomes with some level of accuracy. The models show that certain scope management practices can be used to predict owner satisfaction, profit margin, and cost and quality performance of the project. Construction industry practitioners who are managing projects in China may benefit from the findings by focusing more on upstream management, like managing project scope, in order to ensure project success. It is recommended that construction industry practitioners use the MLR models to make preliminary assessment of the possibility of project success based on the type of PM practices they intend to adopt in China. From the results, they can then decide if they should change their practices or abort the project.

Having a clear project definition is crucial for successful construction projects. It affects design quality, project communication between stakeholders, and final project performance in terms of cost, schedule, and quality. This paper examines the relationship between project definition and final project performance through a structural equation model comprising four latent constructs and six path hypotheses using data from a questionnaire survey of 120 general contractors in the Malaysian construction industry. The results show that in the study population all three items impact the project performance, but the link between design quality and project performance is indirect. Instead, the clarity of project definition affects project performance indirectly through design quality and project communication and design quality affects project performance indirectly through project communication. The primary contribution is to provide quantitative confirmation of the more general statements made in th...

For design-build (DB) projects, owners normally use lump sum and guaranteed maximum price (GMP) as the major contract payment provisions. However, there was a lack of empirical studies to c...

This paper presents the development, validation, and implementation of an innovative comprehensive project performance metric specifically developed for architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) projects. The project quarterback rating (PQR) combines key performance metrics of a project into a single number to provide a basis for quantifying project success. The combined performance areas include customer relations, schedule and budget compliance, quality and safety statistics, financial metrics, and communication among the different project stakeholders. The existing literature is analyzed to identify key performance metrics. A data-collection instrument is developed and then used to gather quantitative performance data from recently completed projects. Data are collected from industry professionals across the United States, and multivariate data analysis techniques are used to validate the model. PQR can compare the overall performance for different AEC projects, in addition to the perfo...

Currently there are no formal decision tools or guidelines to assist owners and project managers in choosing delivery systems and project strategies that would allow significant reductions in the project cycle time. The development of a decision aid that would allow a project manager to prioritize and apply project cycle reduction techniques would be a valuable tool for achieving project cycle time reduction in projects. This paper presents a new high performance project delivery system called "project manager's game planner" PMGP designed to assist a decision maker in identifying and utilizing an optimal set of radical reduction techniques RRTs with the greatest potential for success in achieving cycle time reduction. Additionally, the PMGP can assist the user in identifying the top RRTs during any of the five project phases: preproject planning, design, material management, construction, and start-up. Most projects can utilize this PMGP to improve the project performance whether to achieve significant cycle time reduction or to simply achieve effective project execution.

Early studies of project planning endorsed a task-centric method, such as the program evaluation and review technique (PERT), that assigns relationships and tasks based upon the logical sequences of construction. This method works for projects with clearly assigned tasks, specific requirements, finely tuned organizations, and explicit roles and responsibilities for the project team. However, for projects that exist in a fast-paced and complex environment and are performed by temporary organizations, this task-centric method neglects the interdependence between project tasks and project contextual factors, such as project organizations, teams, knowledge, and resources that have considerable effect on task completion and project effectiveness. To investigate the congruence, the matching degree, between task assignment and the project’s organizational environment, this study uses a three-dimensional metanetwork analysis (MNA) to model a project’s personnel [hereinafter referred to as agents (A)], kno...

A project quality assurance organization (QAO) assigns project quality responsibilities and relationships, both for design and construction. In the highway sector, all project quality roles and responsibilities have historically been assigned to the state highway agency (SHA), an accepted and well-understood industry practice. However, increasing use of alternative project delivery methods and reductions in SHA staffing are having an impact on traditional QAO practices. SHAs are increasingly selecting alternative QAOs, but they are making these selections in an ad hoc manner because of limited staff knowledge and experience, and a lack of guidance from the research community. Highway design and construction quality research focuses almost exclusively on inspections, observations, corporate quality, warranties, and materials testing, resulting in a gap in the research about shifts in project quality roles and responsibilities. This research extends the civil engineering quality management body of knowledge by identifying factors that influence the selection of QAOs and rating the appropriateness of the QAOs for each selection factor. Because of the complexity of the topic, scope of the decision process, and the limited project data available, structured interviews and the Delphi method were chosen to explore the selection factors. The research discovered 10 factors: project size, project complexity, project delivery method, project schedule sensitivity, availability of agency project staff, agency project staff experience, agency culture, industry ability to manage their own quality, trust between agency and industry, and amount of quality risk to shift away from the agency. The research provides the highway industry with new understanding of the effects that each selection factor has on the fundamental QAOs. This fundamental knowledge will allow SHAs to make more informed QAO selections.

Hitherto, it is not known if the integration of relationship concepts into traditional public-sector construction contracts would improve project performance. This study hence examines the ...

This paper describes a process for converting a project manager's qualitative evaluation of "successful performance" to a quantitative measurement. In a recent study, randomly selected electrical companies throughout the United States submitted two projects for analysis: (1) one project that was well planned and performed successfully; and (2) one project that was poorly planned and performed less-than-successfully. Overall, 55 projects were evaluated. Success, however, is a subjective concept that often depends on the team member providing the definition. Consequently, during the interview process, project managers were asked to provide their own definition of successful performance, and this definition was matched to the collected data to identify appropriate variables for inclusion in a performance measurement index. A reliability analysis was performed, and six variables were ultimately used to construct the index, including actual percent profit, percent schedule overrun, amount of time given, communication between team members, budget achievement, and change in work hours. A cross-validation technique was used to evaluate the performance measurement index, and a misclassification rate of 2% was observed, which indicated that the model was useful for quantitatively measuring successful performance based on the project managers' definitions of success.

Owners, developers, and engineers are often challenged with determining the value of accelerating the construction of a project. There is a cost for accelerating the construction of a project to reduce the time required to transfer a facility into the operational phase. Determining the cost of acceleration is a difficult challenge with the limited information typically available early in the project development phase. Many unknowns exist (e.g., future revenue, costs, etc.) and the owner, developer, or engineer often make best guesses to justify if building faster is worthwhile. A simple methodology is needed to assess the value of building faster. This paper derives a set of equations that will allow owners, developers, and/or engineers to estimate the percent increase of the baseline project costs to reduce the time to completion of a construction project. The equations were derived such that variables that are easily known or can easily and reliably be determined are required. After the value of accelerating a project is determined (as a percentage of the original baseline budget), owner, developers, and/or engineers can use this information to determine if a project should be accelerated.

The design-build delivery method is increasingly used in the United States due to numerous advantages it can offer a project. An important issue associated with design-build delivery is the procurement method used to select the design-build team. It is a critical decision that involves several key project team members, including the owner, designer, and contractor organizations, and requires the owner to carefully choose the design-build procurement method that will be used to select the team that will deliver the project. This research quantitatively analyzed the correlation between the design-build procurement method and the performance of the design-build project with regard to cost, time, and quality metrics. The procurement methods studied were sole source, qualifications-based, best value, and low bid selection. Data were collected through surveys from 76 design-build projects in the United States. Based on the patterns and relationships identified from these data, a better understanding of the procurement process and how it influences project performance is achieved. The impact of project-specific factors and guidelines are presented to assist owners in selecting the design-build team procurement method that responds to their project goals.

Project delivery systems define the roles and responsibilities of the parties involved in a project. They also establish an execution framework in terms of sequencing of design, procurement, and construction. The decision made in the selection of a project delivery system for a project impacts all phases of execution of the project and greatly impacts the efficiency of project execution. Such decisions should be facilitated by thorough analysis. Structured, quantitative decision analysis processes have been shown to have several benefits over the simplistic, holistic, and informal processes that typically characterize subjective evaluations. However, a dearth of quantitative values of project delivery systems established and validated through research has invariably left project managers with no alternative than to make project delivery selection decisions on the basis of subjective evaluations. Development of the needed quantitative values for application in a decision analysis process would greatly enhance the quality of the decision-making process and provide a defensible rationale for selection of project delivery systems for capital projects. This paper presents research findings that provide the needed quantitative values in this area. Based on the quantitative values defined here, interested parties can develop and implement quantitative evaluation of project delivery alternatives to identify the optimal solution for a given project. Multicriteria decision analysis was found to be the suitable approach for a quantitative, analytical evaluation of project delivery systems. Consequently, the quantitative values presented in this paper were developed in accordance with the requirements of the multicriteria decision analysis technique known as simple multiattribute rating technique with swing weights (SMARTS). Utilizing the quantitative values presented here and applying the analysis technique of SMARTS, a decision support tool has been developed and validated for the Construction Industry Institute. The decision support tool is presently being utilized by member companies of the Construction Industry Institute that were privy to its development. With the presentation of the quantitative values in this paper, other parties interested in developing similar tools would benefit from the research results presented here.

This paper introduces a software, Stochastic Project Scheduling Simulation (SPSS), developed to measure the probability to complete a project in a certain time specified by the user. To deliver a project by a completion date committed to in a contract, a number of activities need to be carried out. The time that an entire project takes to complete and the activities that determine total project duration are always questionable because of the randomness and stochastic nature of the activities' durations. Predicting a project completion probability is valuable, particularly at the time of bidding. The SPSS finds the longest path in a network and runs the network a number of times specified by the user and calculates the stochastic probability to complete the project in the specified time. The SPSS can be used by a contractor: (1) to predict the probability to deliver the project in a given time frame and (2) to assess its capabilities to meet the contractual requirement before bidding. The SPSS can also be used by a construction owner to quantify and analyze the risks involved in the schedule. The benefits of the tool to researchers are: (1) to solve program evaluation and review technique problems; (2) to complement Monte Carlo simulation by applying the concept of project network modeling and scheduling with probabilistic and stochastic activities via a web based Java Simulation which is operateable over the Internet, and (3) to open a way to compare a project network having different distribution functions.

Change is inevitable on construction projects, primarily because of the uniqueness of each project and the limited resources of time and money that can be spent on planning, executing, and delivering the project. Change clauses, which authorize the owner to alter work performed by the contractor, are included in most construction contracts and provide a mechanism for equitable adjustment to the contract price and duration. Even so, owners and contractors do not always agree on the adjusted contract price or the time it will take to incorporate the change. What is needed is a method to quantify the impact that the adjustments required by the change will have on the changed and unchanged work. Owners and our legal system recognize that contractors have a right to an adjustment in contract price for owner changes, including the cost associated with materials, labor, lost profit, and increased overhead due to changes. However, the actions of a contractor can impact a project just as easily as those of an owner. A more complex issue is that of determining the cumulative impact that single or multiple change orders may have over the life of a project. This paper presents a method to quantify the cumulative impact on labor productivity for mechanical and electrical construction resulting from changes in the project. Statistical hypothesis testing and correlation analysis were made to identify factors that affect productivity loss resulting from change orders. A multiple regression model was developed to estimate the cumulative impact of change orders. The model includes six significant factors, namely: Percent change, change order processing time, overmanning, percentage of time the project manager spent on the project, percentage of the changes initiated by the owner, and whether the contractor tracks productivity or not. Sensitivity analysis was performed on the model to study the impact of one factor on the productivity loss (%delta). The model can be used proactively to determine the impacts that management decisions will have on the overall project productivity. They may also be used at the conclusion of the project as a dispute resolution tool. It should be noted that every project is unique, so these tools need to be applied with caution.

Lack of information regarding technology benefits along with uncertain competitive advantage from new technology have resulted in industry reluctance to implement new technologies. An industry-wide survey was used to collect project data from 200+ capital facility projects on the issue of technology usage and overall project success. 22 research hypotheses are presented and analyzed according to 5 different data class variables: industry sector, total installed cost, public vs. private, greenfield vs. expansion vs. renovation, and typical vs. advanced projects. Findings pertaining to associations between project success and technology usage at the project and phase level are discussed. Results of this research indicate that several technologies may contribute significantly to project performance in terms of cost and schedule success, particularly for certain types of projects. In addition, project schedule success is more closely associated with technology utilization than is project cost success. Findings from this study can provide companies with information on technology benefits and whether to use certain technologies.

Success has always been the ultimate goal of every activity, and a construction project is no exception. Due to the ambiguous definition of project success and the different perceptions of participants toward this concept, it may be difficult to tell whether a project is successful as there is a lack of consensus. Time, cost, and quality have long been the success criteria used to evaluate the performance of a construction project. However, such a list has been criticized as not being comprehensive. Even studies of the project success of a particular construction method, such as the design/build procurement system, are lacking in most previous research considering construction projects in general. This paper sets out to establish criteria for project success for a design/build project in construction, first by identifying relevant measures of project success for a construction project in past studies, with particular emphasis on design/build projects, and then by establishing a comprehensive assessment fr...

Three new product development programs attempting to meet challenging targets for time-to-market, quality, and cost were in urgent need of space and facilities. A decision was made to reengineer a ...

A major driver to project success is the ability to manage the project cost effectively. Despite agreement among scholars and practitioners on the importance of managing the project cost, major projects continue to experience excessive cost overruns. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the issue of project cost control in major power transmission projects, and to understand the reasons behind cost overrun. The author used a Delphi method to identify problems of controlling the project cost, suggests solutions to overcome these problems, and identifies lessons learned. The study used a three-round semistructured questionnaire with two different project teams to compare and validate findings from one project team to another. Key findings from the study helped to shed some light on the complexity of the learning process itself, and to understand why lessons learned are not truly learned and mistakes are repeated from past to future projects. The paper concludes with specific practices and a s...

Alternative project delivery methods and reductions in state highway agency staffing are changing project quality assurance organizations (QAO) or the assignment of project quality management roles and responsibilities in the industry. Although fundamental quality roles and responsibilities remain the same, the assignment of these roles and responsibilities is shifting away from agencies and is doing so in an ad hoc manner because of project time constraints and lack of research and guidance on the topic. Most research that pertains to highway project quality has focused on quality control levels, material specifications, inspections, and observations; there is a gap in the research about overall project quality organizations. This paper addresses that gap by providing a better understanding of highway project QAOs and guidance about assignments of quality management roles and responsibilities. The research identified five fundamental highway project QAOs through a national survey of industry, a literature review, and an analysis of the content of documents from 66 projects. The resulting five fundamental highway project QAOs are Deterministic, Assurance, Variable, Oversight, and Acceptance.

This study aimed to identify a set of project success factors for design and build (D&B) projects and examine the relative importance of these factors on project outcome. Six project success factors (project team commitment, contractor's competencies, risk and liability assessment, client's competencies, end-users' needs, and constraints imposed by end-users) were extracted from factor analysis of data provided by 53 participants of public-sector D&B projects through a questionnaire survey. Project team commitment, client's competencies, and contractor's competencies were found to be important to bring successful project outcome from the multiple regression findings. Contractor's competencies also contributed to project time performance. Project team members should also recognize that time and cost performance as well as quality of design and workmanship represent the key elements of overall success of D&B projects. Practitioners are advised to focus on teamwork and partnering for successful project compl...

The identification of key factors for construction project success enables appropriate allocation of limited resources. Most of the related past work only identified critical success factors for construction projects in general. The present study seeks to distinguish these factors according to the project objectives of budget, schedule, and quality. The analytic hierarchy process is adopted to determine the relative importance of success-related factors. A hierarchical model for construction project success is presented. Sixty-seven success-related factors are considered. These factors are grouped under four main project aspects, namely, project characteristics, contractual arrangements, project participants, and interactive processes in the hierarchical model for project success. A questionnaire was developed to facilitate systematic data collection in this study. Experts with an overall average of 20 years of experience in the construction industry were invited to participate in the survey. Critical suc...

This hypothetical case study provides a vehicle for illustrating typical project cash flows and the day-to-day events that can influence these flows. The case study also shows the interaction between project cash flows and a firm's overall financial condition. As the title implies, it is a simplified caricature of what actually happens in more complex and realistic setting, where a project manager has to worry about a multitude of problems, including the concerns of project scope schedule, and budget, plus the technical challenges of getting the job done. Isolating the management of the cash flow from the rest of these concerns allows an examination of what a project manager might need to contend with respect to cast and financial management of a project. Three industry experts-Robert J. Berg, Francis D. Leathers (Member ASCE), and Mark C. Zweig-provide analysis of the case study.

In today's projects, the project team's decision-making process is critical to project planning. When making these decisions, however, the team must contend with the insidious elements of uncertainty and demand for speed that so often affect project performance and success. The project manager's principle role is to manage his/her team's decision-making and not to make the decisions. By defining the constraints under which the team must operate, he or she can influence their decisions. A valuable tool is suggested to manage the decision-making process, in an atmosphere of uncertainty, with instructions for its application to any project. The tool is a dynamic table that is continuously modified as the project progresses. It is not only a prioritized checklist, but also gives a total view of the project so that the team can collect missing information and make timely decisions to ensure project success.

Public sector owners are rapidly identifying new construction procurement methods. Changing procurement laws and documented project success are encouraging owners to attempt the design-build method of project procurement. Design-build is a radical departure from the traditional design-bid-build method. This paper reports on the analysis of 122 case studies and the resulting automated tool for public sector design-build project selection. Prediction models are developed for five performance criteria that correlate specific project characteristics to success. Performance criteria and associated models include budget variance, schedule variance, conformance to expectations, administrative burden, and overall user satisfaction. Project characteristics are categorized as project, owner, market, and relationship variables. Statistically significant correlations with success include scope definition, schedule definition, budget definition, project complexity, agency experience, agency staffing, owner design input, design-build market, design-builder prequalification, and method of selection.

The risks involved in any construction project can vary greatly and can include economic and market conditions, governmental regulations and zoning, and environmental requirements. The decision that will most affect the relationships and risk allocation on a construction project is the choice of project delivery method. Choosing the right project delivery method is the first protection against surprises. The traditional project delivery sequence is a triangular system of design/award/build in three separate phases. Under this relationship, the owner must determine whether the contract should be negotiated or bid and, if it is to be bid, what type of qualification or screening of bidders should be used. If the contract is to be negotiated, the owner should consider engaging the contractor in two separate roles: to serve as a consultant to the owner and architect early in the design phase, and to provide a guaranteed maximum price and guaranteed schedule and accomplish construction. To save time, some degree of fast-tracking may also be included in the project, allowing the owner to enter into separate, prime contracts for discrete jobs early in the project. For owners who want to transfer responsibility for both design and construction to one organization, the design/build project delivery approach may work. This delivery method can also save time on a project. In the typical design/build method, where a single contractor provides both the design and the construction of the project, the owner obtains a single source of responsibility. Whatever project-delivery method the owner chooses, the traditional roles and attitudes of owners, architects, contractors, and subcontractors should not be ignored. While innovation can bring improvements, change for the sake of change can create needless complications.

To manage engineering services effectively for a particular project, project managers need to have a comprehensive method for establishing and assessing scope, schedule, and budget. The Engineering Department of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has developed a number of forms, called task cards, that not only help project managers keep track of such information, but also help them communicate it to clients and other project team members. Created in a spreadsheet format, the cards can be created and updated easily as changes occur. Various task cards can be rolled up into a "summary project task card," which defines the deliverables for the overall project, including the associated budgets, schedules, and significant milestones for each of the design and construction stages. Because they contain schedules for the entire project at hand, the summary cards provide a graphic representation of the time frames required to complete each task. The task cards also enable the project manager to develop an overall engineering budget for each project stage. The key advantage of task cards is integration. Every aspect of a project can be identified, measured, tracked, compared, and communicated within a single system. By pulling all of the variables of a project together in a compatible format, project managers can define scope, schedule, and budget more clearly. Sample task cards are included.

The decline in government funds and the increased demand on public agencies for the construction of new (or the rehabilitation of existing) infrastructure projects has led to the growth of alternative forms of project development, such as BOT and BOO. The Desirability Model, presented in this paper, is a multiattribute evaluation model that provides a logical, reliable, and consistent procedure for assessing the capability of a private-sector company’s becoming a promoter for a given project and the attractiveness of an infrastructure project’s being actively promoted by a given company. The proposed model was developed with the assistance of 14 experts from around the world. It produces two indices (one for company competencies and one for project attractiveness) that depend on the actual performance levels of a total of 23 company and project attributes. The model has been validated by comparing these indices to the experts’ holistic evaluations of 19 company and project profiles. Example applications of the model include the evaluation of the Eurotunnel and an illustration of how sensitivity analysis can identify strategies for project improvement.

Managing design while under the constraints of a firm-price (lump-sum) contract with payment based on client-accepted deliverables provides the project manager a challenge that generally is not undertaken by the engineering profession. This paper defines the prerequisites for success with any design project. It amplifies management techniques that are required due to the nature of this contract type. Preestablishing a comprehensive list of deliverables that are time sensitive with a budget allocation that matches closely the anticipated expenditure curve is essential. Reaching mutual agreement between all participating parties, especially the client, on this deliverable list is a special challenge to a project manager's negotiation skills. Later in the paper, the writer uses a current project assignment as a testament to the identified prerequisites for success on a major tunnel project called the Point Loma Tunnel Outfall (PLTO). The lessons learned on this assignment can be applied to other contract for...

The costs associated with replacing key personnel in a consulting firm can easily exceed the annual salary of the employee when considering all factors. To estimate this cost, a project manager employed with a national-size consulting firm is assumed to have resigned in the midst of a detailed civil project. All additional costs (not billable to the client) to complete the project on time and within budget are considered. Intangible costs are difficult if not impossible to monetarily evaluate. One such cost is the relationships the project manager has with his client. The client does not consider the turnover of the project manager in midstream, a positive factor in maintaining project continuity. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the additional costs of completing the project on schedule with other personnel available within the company and to determine the cost of replacing the project manager with an individual of similar competence and expertise. Both tangible and intangible costs are considered in evaluating the project manager’s resignation. Once the replacement cost is determined, the effect of personnel turnover on the firm is computed. The results of this study indicated that effective human-resource management can have a substantial impact on a firm’s bottom line and appears to be the key ingredient to minimizing employee turnover.

This paper describes the development of three checklists of factors that can be evaluated in analyzing the performance of an engineering consulting firm during the proposal, office technical, and construction monitoring phases of projects. An essential part of checklist development is to understand the course a project follows through the company. To define the path of a project through the consulting firm, a flow diagram should be created for each project phase. The flow diagrams provide a chronological, detailed overview of the project path and help to develop the checklists, A special highlight of the proposal and office technical checklists is the partial list of items to be included in the text. This feature of the checklists is intended to help eliminate inadvertent omissions from the final report or proposal submitted to the client. The construction monitoring checklist contains a similar highlight. It is referred to as a partial list of concerns, and is intended to promote in‐house briefings of it...

This paper critiques the common practice in managing and tracking the engineering/design phase of major projects and presents an alternative integrated approach. It addresses in detail the development of control budget, project schedule, progress measurement procedure, and project data base to accomplish full cost and scheduling integration. Cost/schedule integration is achieved by: (1) Developing control budget based on the project work breakdown structure (WBS); (2) identifying all project documents on the project WBS; (3) grouping the project documents in work packages; (4) making reference to the work packages on the project schedule; (5) determining distinguishable events (control points) for each package; and (6) using the earned value concept as the means for progress measurement. The procedure is capable of objectively determining the progress of the scheduling activities, performance indices, and budget forecasts. A numerical example and a case study are provided to illustrate the implementation ...

As companies keep restructuring, reorganizing and downsizing, it is important that standard operating procedures be identified and documented in a simple and usable format, such as a project management manual. This information is critical in project management, where corporate policies for the project delivery process need to be defined clearly. The Engineering Department of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey compiled this type of comprehensive manual. Training sessions were held with staff to review the responsibilities and procedures required of the project team members. The manual’s framework should include a clear mission statement, simplified project delivery procedures, responsibilities of team members, information systems controls, and effective communication methods.

A checklist is presented to evaluate how well a consulting engineering firm performed on a project. As a prerequisite to designing the checklist, the attributes of a successful project had to be defined. The checklist is designed with four main qualities as goals: (1) Comprehensive, covering the key performance criteria; (2) simple to complete; (3) useful to project managers, serving as a tool rather than an additional burden on their time; and (4) sufficiently adaptable to accommodate the wide variety of projects performed by the firm. The checklist assesses performance on a project in the following key areas: professional image, quality of design or service, profitability, risk management, adherence to schedule and budget, and, most importantly, client satisfaction. Use of the checklist is explained, and the steps leading to its development are discussed. The outcome of a pilot test and the resulting revisions are described. Finally, an implementation program to adopt its use on a firm‐wide basis is pro...

Most traditional construction contracts document the purchase of a product in the form of a constructed facility, but construction is about service as well as products. More and more, project delivery systems are recognizing the dual aspects of a construction project and specifying behaviors as well as an end project. Changes to project delivery systems are essentially the recognition of the behavior aspects of the contracts that tie contractors together. Typical project roles include the investment management team, the project management team, contractor management teams, work managers, and work management teams. Program managers must be more broadly based and knowledgeable about specific technologies, as well as about finance, design, construction, and operations. Managers need experience in both the public and the private sector and must be professionals who can work for the project, instead of a specific partner's interests. Perhaps future contracts will be more like employment agreements. The contracting parties will not be directly responsible for the end product but rather will have responsibility for supplying the key managers to lead the various teams. Future delivery systems will concentrate more on teaming and behavior and less on buying a final product.