Critical Success Factors for Stakeholder Management: Construction Practitioners’ Perspectives

Although various factors have been identified as important for accomplishing successful stakeholder management, few studies appear to have undertaken a comparative analysis of practitioners’ views on the relative importance of critical success factors (CSFs) for stakeholder management in construction projects. In an attempt to fill this research gap, a questionnaire survey was conducted in Hong Kong to collect the opinions of construction practitioners regarding the relative importance of CSFs for stakeholder management. Findings from this study show that all 15 selected CSFs are regarded as critical by most respondents for the success of stakeholder management in construction projects. The factor regarding social responsibilities is considered most important for managing stakeholders. Although correlations between CSFs and types of projects and organizations were statistically significant, these were not particularly strong. Also, even though there is a general consensus on the rankings of the CSFs among different respondents, the detailed pairwise comparisons actually show the existence of a few differences in perceptions on the relative importance of the CSFs. Therefore, the working priorities of project managers for managing stakeholders are context specific, depending on the nature, client sector, and cost of the project, and also on their organizations and management levels in the organization. These findings should help project managers become more aware of their responsibilities and the relative importance of issues for management stakeholders.     

Knowledge and Reasoning for MEP Coordination

The coordination of mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) systems is a major challenge for complex buildings and industrial plants. The process involves locating equipment and routing connecting elements for each building system. This multidiscipline effort is time-consuming and expensive and requires knowledge regarding each system over the project life cycle. Current practice requires representatives from each MEP trade to work together to identify and resolve interferences. Effective MEP coordination requires recalling and integrating knowledge regarding design, construction, operations, and maintenance of each MEP system. Currently, designers and constructors use tailored CAD systems to design and fabricate MEP systems, but no knowledge-based computer technology exists to assist in the multidiscipline MEP coordination effort. The paper describes results from a research project to capture knowledge related to design criteria, construction, operations, and maintenance of MEP systems and apply this knowledge in a computer tool that can assist designers and builders in resolving coordination problems for multiple MEP systems.     

Construction Delays and Their Causative Factors in Nigeria

Construction delays are disruptive and expensive. This study assesses the causes of delays by focusing on actions and inactions of project participants and external factors. The study analyzed quantitative data from completed building projects to assess the extent of delays, and data obtained from a postal questionnaire survey of construction managers to assess the extent to which 44 identified factors contributed to overall delays on a typical project they have been involved with. The findings showed that the factors could be prioritized. However, Pareto analysis revealed that 88% of the factors (representing 39 highest priority factors) were responsible for 90% of the overall delays. This suggests that there is no discernable difference among the different delay factors and none really stands out as contributing to a large percentage of the problem. A one-sample t test further confirmed that most of the factors are important contributors to delays. The results suggest the interdependent nature of construction activities and roles of project participants. The overall ranking of the factors and ranking within each factor category provide useful information for construction industry practitioners, policy makers, and researchers when devising ways of combating delays. The results also indicate areas of construction industry practice that require improvement.     

Master Builder Project Delivery System and Designer Construction Knowledge

The master builder system for designing and building construction projects was the dominant project delivery system in the construction industry during the early part of the 20th century. Master builders were generally charged with both design and construction services for a project. During the last half of the 20th century, many different systems for project delivery with fragmented responsibilities have replaced the master builder system. Reducing the use of the master builder system has led to the creation of elaborate systems for managing projects in the construction industry. In order to investigate the use of the master builder delivery system and other systems, a research project was conducted that included reviewing (1) the history of the construction industry, (2) project delivery systems, (3) constructability issues, (4) construction industry fragmentation, (5) the results of a survey of architecture, engineering, and construction professionals from the San Francisco Bay Area in California on the current processes they use for training engineers and architects, (6) an analysis of the survey results, (7) construction industry recommendations, and (8) conclusions based on the survey results and analysis. The information obtained from the research project, including the survey and an analysis of the results, is included in this document. The results of the research indicate that reduction in the use of the master builder project delivery system and the rise of numerous fragmented delivery systems have limited the designer’s knowledge of construction processes.     

Multimodal Image Retrieval from Construction Databases and Model-Based Systems

In the modern and dynamic construction environment it is important to access information in a fast and efficient manner in order to improve the decision making processes for construction managers. This capability is, in most cases, straightforward with today’s technologies for data types with an inherent structure that resides primarily on established database structures like estimating and scheduling software. However, previous research has demonstrated that a significant percentage of construction data is stored in semi-structured or unstructured data formats (text, images, etc.) and that manually locating and identifying such data is a very hard and time-consuming task. This paper focuses on construction site image data and presents a novel image retrieval model that interfaces with established construction data management structures. This model is designed to retrieve images from related objects in project models or construction databases using location, date, and material information (extracted from the image content with pattern recognition techniques).     

Delay Mitigation in the Malaysian Construction Industry

This paper describes the importance of applying proper management in dealing with delays in construction for a growing economy. The main objective of this paper is to identify the management tools that are practiced in the local construction industry in mitigating delay. It also aims to identify the main factors that lead to project delays and to suggest recommendations on how to overcome or mitigate effects of the problem. Data is gathered from responses from questionnaire survey and interviews with those involved in construction project. The surveys and research findings indicate that delay incidents occur mainly during the construction phase of a project and one or more parties usually contribute to delay. This paper highlights the importance of having more experienced and capable construction managers as well as skilled laborers to enable the industry to develop at a faster rate either nationally or internationally.     

矿山施工企业项目经理激励问题的经济学分析与求解

从经济学的角度分析矿山施工企业项目管理者——项目经理的行为模式,结合对中国现行项目经理薪酬分配形式的分析,通过构建项目经理薪酬分配约束得出了矿山施工企业项目经理薪酬激励问题的最优解。通过分析求解项目经理薪酬激励约束问题,提出了项目经理有效激励的薪酬分配方式。     

Greening Project Management Practices for Sustainable Construction

Environmentally sustainable building construction has experienced significant growth during the past 10 years. The public is becoming more aware of the benefits of green construction as prominent politicians, celebrities, documentarians, and journalists highlight the built environment’s impact on greenhouse gas emissions and natural resource consumption. Other factors, including higher energy prices, increased costs of building materials, and regulatory incentives, are also pushing the green building market to grow and expand. However, barriers to green building continue to exist, including the ability to deliver a green project within acceptable cost constraints. In order for project managers to deliver sustainable construction according to clients’ cost expectations, modifications must be made to traditional project management processes and practices. The objective of this paper is to suggest specific modifications to conventional building practices to optimize the delivery of cost-efficient green building projects. This paper presents an overview of research related to the costs and trends of green building and uses these research findings to make recommendations for greening project management practices for the construction industry. Our research results show that greening project management practices can add significant value to a sustainable construction project while delivering it within acceptable cost constraints. A detailed analysis using matrix present specific adjustments to traditional project management practices, with a premise that a green project improves its chances for financial success if a cross-discipline team is involved at the earliest stages and throughout the project.     

Exploring Coordination Goals of Construction Projects

Effective coordination has been regarded in both theory and practice as a critical factor of success in construction projects. Previous coordination studies have focused on the time spent on coordination, its frequency, and its relationship with performance. However, coordination goals have received less attention, and their relationships with coordination methods and performance are not known. This paper studies coordination methods and goals for construction projects to identify what coordination goals are adopted and to what extent goals are achieved. In the research process, eight coordination methods and six goals were derived. A questionnaire was designed accordingly and sent to seven contractors for survey. Follow-up interviews were conducted with three or four managers and engineers from each contractor. The analysis results indicate that most coordination methods have multiple goals; written coordination methods such as plans, schedules, reports, and contract documents tend to have appropriate goals; and projects performed well by using coordination methods effectively to achieve the coordination goals.     

What Is Preproject Planning, Anyway?

The importance of preproject planning in the capital facility delivery process and its potential impact on project success has long been recognized by industry practitioners. Nevertheless, the preproject planning process varies significantly throughout the construction industry from one organization to another, and from one business sector to another. This paper will summarize lessons learned from five research projects conducted during the past 14?years regarding the preproject planning process. These research projects were based on data from more than 200 capital projects, representing approximately 8.7 billion U.S. dollars; input from more than 500 industry practitioners; and reviews of the project planning processes used by more than 100 organizations. The positive relationship between thorough preproject planning and enhanced project performance is demonstrated. Findings are presented, including key requirements, processes, and scope definition elements that comprise thorough preproject planning. Similarities and differences in the scope definition of building and industrial projects are outlined. Conclusions of the research effort and recommendations to industry practitioners are provided.     

Project Network Interdependency Alignment: New Approach to Assessing Project Effectiveness

The engineering and construction industry has evolved to a task-centric approach to evaluating the effectiveness of projects. However, a narrow task-based view of project network logic neglects the coordination of communication and knowledge exchanges across the project organizational network. This paper departs from traditional approaches to introduce a new approach to assessing project effectiveness that focuses on alignment of actual knowledge exchanges with knowledge exchange requirements across task-organization network dyads. A new modeling approach is introduced, called Project Network Interdependency Alignment. Project Network Interdependency Alignment identifies potentially excessive or insufficient communication and knowledge exchanges that can make projects ineffective. The modeling approach is introduced and retrospectively validated by using a building renovation construction project. The case study demonstrates that the approach can provide project managers with the capacity to analyze task and organizational network interdependence on projects and the critical capability to identify misalignments that impede project effectiveness.     

Integrated Schedule and Cost Model for Repetitive Construction Process

Several efforts have been made by many researchers to develop a model for schedule and cost integration in construction projects, but it is difficult to integrate and manage schedule and cost in an actual construction site using such a model. The integrated schedule and cost model developed in this study (1) enables the planning and control of repetitive construction processes and (2) can be used by a project manager in an actual construction site. Furthermore, an integrated schedule and cost model for the core wall construction, which is an important repetitive process in the recently booming high-rise building construction in terms of scheduling, was developed using the integration model developed in this study. It is expected that the integrated schedule and cost model developed can allow project managers to integrate the schedule and cost of repetitive construction processes more effectively and support the project managers’ decision-making.     

Influences Impacting Leadership Development

The construction industry is placing increased emphasis on developing leadership skills for project managers. This paper describes a research project that was executed to analyze the causal influences on the development of project managers, whom the authors believe also must be leaders. The research compared two groups of project managers within a large construction company. One group was top performing construction managers as selected by corporate executives, while the second group was a randomly selected control group. The research examined influences on career development including job experience, project management experience, formal project management training, formal leadership training, and job assignments. The research also solicited opinions from both groups as to what they perceived as factors impacting leadership career development. Statistical differences between the groups were found in the areas of project management experience and number of positions held prior to the first project management assignment. Both groups believed there was more of a need within their company for leadership training than for project management training.     

Communication Patterns in Construction at Construction Manager Level

The procurement process of construction projects has been affected by developments in the field of Information Technology, as well as by the need to cope with growing technological challenges stemming from the integration of multiple building systems into tall and complex buildings. Furthermore, since the procurement phases are undertaken simultaneously, project complexity is increased, and increased integration among them is therefore required. These constraints have made the management of complex construction projects less of an architectural and engineering issue and more of a managerial one. In turn, this has led to an increasing use of the “construction management” concept in the procurement process. This study focused on communications in construction management procurement of building and residential projects in Israel. Communications between the construction manager and the design team were found to be vital in ensuring adherence to project objectives. Communication means were classified as “formal”—written technical information, and as “informal”—verbal communications. Construction managers in Israel still use informal communications in 50% of their interactions with their project counterparts. The study concludes that design capabilities should be one of the essential qualifications required of a construction management firm. In addition to the more traditional responsibilities, such as planning, scheduling, and coordination, the scope of the construction manager’s professional duties should emphasize the aspect of quality management.     

What Does the Construction Industry Value in Its Workers?

This paper briefly characterizes today’s United States (U.S.) construction workforce, and attempts to provide evidence for what the construction industry most values in its workers. It presents the social and demographic characteristics of a sample of 862 construction workers, from 19 project sites that were interviewed in 2002, as part of a research effort at the University of Texas at Austin, and compares them with broader-based Bureau of Labor Statistics data to establish the degree to which they represent the U.S. construction workforce. Via statistical analysis, the paper explores the relationships between workers’ attributes and how the industry compensates them as reflected in both hourly wages and average annual incomes. The statistical results reinforce what is known about the importance of years of experience; however, it also provides evidence of the importance of number of crafts each worker possessed, and computer knowledge. Less, but significant, evidence was obtained for the importance of the number of years spent with his/her current firm, craft training hours, age, or self-assessed performance.     

Assessment with 360° Evaluations of Leadership Behavior in Construction Project Managers

Although the literature documents substantial research on enhancing the performance of construction project managers, one central component has been inadequately researched: leadership behaviors. This study of a major construction company had two objectives: (1) to analyze the differences in leadership behaviors between a top performing group and a control group of construction project managers; and (2) to identify the causal influences for those leadership behavior differences. This paper addresses the first objective. Of 335 construction project managers, 40 were identified as top performers and 40 were selected randomly from the remaining 295 to serve as controls. The final two groups (35 top performers and 33 controls who completed the evaluation) were not significantly different in terms of age, gender, type/amount of formal education, or type of project experience. A 360° leadership evaluation found that the top performers had quantifiably better leadership behaviors than the controls. These findings may indicate a need in the construction industry for a comprehensive leadership culture, including leadership training and development programs.     

如何做好大中型工程的宏观管理

央企大中型投资项目的规模和工艺技术的复杂性决定了管理者必须具备较高的业务素质,围绕工程进度、质量和造价三大控制目标进行宏观管理,统一协调是管理者的主要职能和手段。     

Causes of Variation in Construction Project Task Starting Times and Duration

In this research, variation is defined as the time difference between what was planned and what actually happened in terms of task starting times and duration. Variation in construction tasks is important as it can impact productivity performance. Construction projects consist of a large number of interdependent tasks. When the starting time and/or duration of one task varies, it can affect other downstream tasks and result in disruptions to the schedule and/or decreased productivity. The construction process is complex and involves numerous people with different levels of responsibility, which makes identifying the root causes of the variation difficult. A nationwide survey was administered to workers, foremen, and project managers to identify the most prevalent causes and magnitude of both starting time and task duration variation. Fifty individual causes of variation were divided into eight categories: prerequisite work, detailed design/working method, labor force, tools and equipment, material and components, work/job site conditions, management/supervision/information flow, and weather or external conditions. This research examined the similarities and differences in perceptions between craft workers, foremen, and project managers in terms of starting time and task duration variation. The top eight causes of starting time variation and top nine causes of task duration variation were identified. The research also quantitatively analyzed the underlying structure of the causes of variation using factor analysis. This was done by grouping the 50 individual causes into nine orthogonal factors that represent the underlying structure of the affecting causes. The findings will help construction project managers and field managers focus on the root causes of variation during planning in order to develop effective strategies to reduce variation and improve project productivity performance.     

Managing Construction Projects Using the Advanced Programmatic Risk Analysis and Management Model

Risk management is an important part of construction management, yet the risk-based decision support tools available to construction managers fail to adequately address risks relating to cost, schedule, and quality together in a coherent framework. This paper demonstrates the usefulness of the Advanced Programmatic Risk Analysis and Management Model (APRAM) originally developed for the aerospace industry, for managing schedule, cost, and quality risks in the construction industry. The usefulness of APRAM for construction projects is demonstrated by implementing APRAM for an example based on an actual building construction project and comparing the results with other risk analysis techniques. The results show that APRAM simultaneously addresses cost, schedule, and quality risk together in a coherent, probabilistic framework that provides the information needed to support decision making in allocating scarce project resources.     

Effect of Preconstruction Planning Effort on Sheet Metal Project Performance

The complexity of construction industry requires the identification of work tasks and the coordination of interactions among them. As a result, construction planning is considered to be one of the most critical steps toward success and is the main focus of past research. Consequently, little research has been performed regarding the preconstruction planning, which is the planning completed by the contractor in the period between project award and project execution. This paper focuses on sheet metal preconstruction planning, primarily that of mechanical and heating ventilations and air conditioning contractors. The research was completed in three phases: phase one gathered data on the current state of preconstruction planning, phase two developed a model sheet metal preconstruction planning process to be used by sheet metal contractors, and phase three validated the model preconstruction planning process. Based on project data collected for this research, projects that used a planning process similar to the model process performed more successfully—they achieved an average profit margin of 23% while projects that were poorly planned experienced an average profit margin of ?3%.