EVALUATION OF CONSTRUCTION PROJECT’S SUCCESS...

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International Journal of Civil Engineering and Technology (IJCIET)

Volume 10, Issue 11, November 2019, pp. 184-197, Article ID: IJCIET_10_11_020

Available online at http://www.iaeme.com/ijciet/issues.asp?JType=IJCIET&VType=10&IType=11

ISSN Print: 0976-6308 and ISSN Online: 0976-6316

© IAEME Publication

EVALUATION OF CONSTRUCTION PROJECT’S

SUCCESS FACTORS

Ahmed Nouh

Assistant professor of Construction Engineering & Management,

Civil Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Benha University, Egypt.

E-mail: [email protected]

Khaled Aboulata Hussein

Deputy Audit Director, Department of Internal Audit & Support,

Orascom Construction, Cairo, Egypt

E-mail: [email protected]

ABSTRACT

Purpose of this paper: This research aims to develop new approach to identify

and evaluate the main factors, which affect construction project success.

Methodology: Objectives of this research was achieved through the design of

questionnaire to evaluate the importance of each factor by project management

experts. After receiving 113 responses, the relative importance of each factor was

calculated by the Sigma Level (L) concept and the weight of each factor was

calculated according to the contribution of each factor to the total L summation.

Questionnaire results was validated through several meetings with project managers

and performing Paired test to confirm that there is no significant difference between

project managers’ opinion and the results of questionnaire.

Findings: Results of questionnaire revealed that experts believe that top five

factors are: Scope, Time, Quality, Cost & Stakeholders Management in descending

order. Paired test confirmed that there is no significant difference between project

managers and expert opinions.

Research limitations: This research didn’t consider the impact of project phase

over the importance of each factor. As an example, the scope factor may become less

important at the closing phase with respect to the planning phase.

Practical implications: The results of this research could be used to develop an

automated system to evaluate the project in quantitative way, rather than the usual

qualitative methods.

Originality: This research adopted a new approach to evaluate the relative

importance of success factors using the Sigma Level (L) concept.

Keywords: Construction Project Success Factors; Project Management; Project

Assessment; Project Evaluation; Project Review; Project Audit

Evaluation of Construction Project’s Success Factors


Cite this Article: Ahmed Nouh and Khaled Aboulata Hussein, Evaluation of

Construction Project’s Success Factors. International Journal of Civil Engineering

and Technology 10(11), 2019, pp. 184-197.

http://www.iaeme.com/IJCIET/issues.asp?JType=IJCIET&VType=10&IType=11

1. INTRODUCTION

Construction projects have gained the world attention due its huge utilization of resources and

significant impact over project stakeholders. Project management institute (PMI) identified

stakeholder as “any person or entity affect or affected by the project”. [1]

The enormous project value and tremendous number of stakeholders explain the impact of

construction industry over the world economy.

The main objective of stakeholders is to ensure the success of construction project to

achieve their objectives effectively and efficiently.

2. PROJECT SUCCESS FACTORS

In order to identify the construction project success factors, a literature review was performed

to explore previous researches performed in this field. [2-14]

After collecting success factors, a questionnaire was designed to collect responses of

project management experts. The questionnaire aimed to collect the experts’ evaluation of

each success criterion and to explore if experts have other success factors, which was not

mentioned in questionnaire.

The first section of questionnaire included information related to respondent’s Age,

education, experience & project management knowledge.

The second section of questionnaire included the information related to the respondent’s

organization such as organization type (owner, consultant, contractor, supplier), total number

of employees & projects’ location.

The third section of questionnaire included the opinion of each respondent towards the

importance of each factor on a Likert scale from 1 to 5 (1 for the least importance and 5 for

the highest importance factor).

The last section of questionnaire includes an open question asking each respondent to

recommend any success factor of construction project, which was not mentioned at the

survey.

3. SAMPLE SIZE CALCULATION

The questionnaire was distributed to local and global experts in construction industry.

To determine the minimum sample size required to respond to the questionnaire, we have

used the Central Limit Theorem, standard error is inversely proportional to the square root of

sample size [15]

, according the following equation:

√ Where, (S) is the Standard Error and (n) is the Sample Size

Ahmed Nouh and Khaled Aboulata Hussein


Figure 1: Sensitivity Analysis of Sample Size & Associated Error

The blue dot in the above graph represents the existing error associated with the collected

113 responses. It is clear that increasing the sample size from 100 to 200 will not affect the

error in a significant manner.

Sample size will also be subjected to further analysis at result validation section to ensure

the accuracy of results.

4. QUESTIONNAIRE RESULTS

One hundred and thirteen responses were received. Summary of results is as follows.

4.1. Respondent’s Information

The first section of questionnaire revealed the following information:

More than 41% of respondents were at age between 30 to 39 working at managerial position

with experience at project management between 5 to 15 years.

77% of respondents had engineering background, while the remaining respondents came from

different background including management, accounting and others.

58% of respondents had Bachelor degree, while other respondents had post graduate studies,

including Diploma, Master and Philosophy Degree.

45% of respondents had Project Management Professional certificate, 39% had another project

management certificate, while 16% had no project management certificate or training.

The following graphs include summary of all responses.



Figure 2: Age

Figure 3: Experience

Figure 4: Education Background



Figure 5: Education Level

Figure 6: Project management training or certificate

Figure 7: Position

4.2. Organization’s Information

The second section of questionnaire revealed the following information:

74% of respondents belonged to contractor organization, 12% consultant, 8, owner & 6%

supplier or service provider organization.

61% of respondents’ organization hires more than 1000 employees, 27% hires between 100 to

1000 employees and 12% had less than 100 employees.



Respondents’ organization had projects all over the world at Africa, Asia, Europe, Australia,

North & South America.

The following graphs include summary of all responses.

Figure 8: Organization Field

Figure 9: Average Number of Organization Employees

Figure 10: Projects' Location



4.3. Respondents’ Opinion

The third section of questionnaire included the respondents’ opinion of the impotency of each

success factor over construction project.

One of the major problems in collecting people responses is the huge variation in opinion,

due the existing differences in respondents’ knowledge, experience, culture, perspective

…etc. This variation may give a misleading results, which will negatively affect the integrity

of research. A box plot can be very helpful to study the existing variation in each response.

A box plot is a rectangular graph, which includes the interquartile range q1, q2 & q3.

q1: the value more than or equal to the 25% of the data



Interquartile rang (IQR) = q3 – q1

A line, which is called in many references whisker, extends to the minimum & maximum

of data within 1.5 * Interquartile rang (IQR) less than q1 or more than q3.

Data out of whiskers rang is marked as outlier.

The following box plot was drawn to visualize the nature and magnitude of variation in

each factor’s responses.

The (*) symbol in graph indicates an outlier in responses. Outlier is an extreme unusual

value. It doesn’t matter it is extremely high or extremely low, but the main important

conclusion is that, most probably, this value doesn’t belong to the distribution.

Despite of this fact, we could avoid the impact of outliers in collected responses by

applying the famous statistical formula of Sigma Level (L) to obtain the relative importance

which could be assigned to each factor. [16]

Sigma Level (L) is a measure of process capability to achieve the planned target.

Sigma Level (L) =

The idea behind Sigma Level is that process becomes more capable when the distance

between the average of performance and the limits (minimum/maximum) increase, due to the

reduced probability of violation of these limits (assuming that the process average is located

between minimum and maximum limits).

Also according to the same equation, the process becomes more capable when variation is

decreased, due to the reduced probability of violation of the same limits.

The above graph explains the concept of Sigma Level, as the performance of each supplier

is evaluated by the Sigma Level value, which was calculated by dividing the distance from the

average of each supplier to the nearest limits (minimum or maximum) over the standard

deviation of each supplier.

The higher Sigma Level means higher capability and higher probability of conforming to

the agreed limits and achieving the planned targets.

To apply the formula of Sigma Level (L) over the questionnaire’s responses and obtain

the relative importance of each factor, we can use the following equation:

Relative Importance of any factor =

The reason behind using this equation is simple. According to the above equation, the

factor will acquire higher importance by having a higher average value from questionnaire’s

respondents, which reflects the importance of this factor over the project success. On the other

hand, at the same equation, factor will also acquire higher importance by having less variation



from questionnaire’s respondents, which reflects the less of doubts in the evaluation of this

factor.

After obtaining the relative importance of each factor has over project success, we can use

the summation of all factors importance to obtain the weight of each factor.

The following table includes success factors’ importance and weight in descending order.

Table 1: Project Success Factors’ Weight

Factor Av. S. Dev. L W

1 Scope Management (Successful completion of approved

work)

4.2 0.9 4.8 5.64

2 Time Management (Commitment to agreed time schedule) 4.2 1.0 4.3 5.04

3 Quality Management (Commitment to technical

specifications & requirements)

4.0 1.0 4.2 4.89

4 Cost Management (Commitment to estimated budget) 4.1 1.0 4.1 4.81

5 Stakeholders Management (Successfully Meeting

expectations of stakeholders such as owner, consultant,

supplier, subcontractor ...etc.)

4.0 1.0 3.9 4.57

6 Owner and consultant support (Cooperation and support of

owner and consultant with contractor to fulfill the project

successfully)

4.0 1.0 3.8 4.43

7 Equipment Management (Efficient usage of equipment) 3.8 1.0 3.8 4.40

8 Leadership (Management ability to lead project team to

achieve objectives)

4.0 1.1 3.7 4.37

9 Governance (Compliance with company policy &

procedures)

3.8 1.0 3.7 4.33

10 Risk Management (Appropriate response to business

threats & opportunities)

3.8 1.0 3.7 4.31

11 Material Management (Efficient usage of material) 3.8 1.0 3.7 4.29

12 External Factors (Market conditions ...etc.) 3.5 1.0 3.6 4.26

13 Safety Management (Appropriate response to safety

hazards)

3.9 1.1 3.6 4.24

14 Human Resources Management (Efficient usage of project

team)

3.7 1.0 3.6 4.22

15 Compliance (Commitment to all applicable laws and

regulations)

4.0 1.1 3.6 4.18

16 Communications Management (Timely exchange of

required information)

3.9 1.1 3.6 4.17

17 Change Management (Ability to adopt with new

requirements)

3.7 1.0 3.6 4.16

18 Procurement Management (Appropriate fulfillment of

project needs)

3.9 1.1 3.5 4.12

19 Sustainability (Ecology, Economics, Politics and Culture) 3.4 1.0 3.5 4.06

20 Knowledge Management (Obtaining knowledge required

for project work & documenting lesson learned after

execution)

3.8 1.1 3.4 4.02

21 Contract & Claim Management (Successful management

of contract & claims with owner or vendors)

3.6 1.1 3.4 3.96

22 Integration (Effective coordination between different

project disciplines)

3.8 1.1 3.3 3.88

23 Environmental Management (Appropriate response to

environmental hazards)

3.5 1.1 3.1 3.64



According to the above results, management experts believe that top five factors affecting

construction project success are: Scope, Time, Cost, Leadership & Quality, in descending

order.

4.4. Respondents Recommendations

Out of the 113 responses, 22 respondents recommended additional success factors, which they

think were not mentioned at the survey. It could be recognized clearly that the additional

factors were embedded somehow in the original factors suggested by the study, but with a

deferent terminology.

Additional success factors recommended by participants will be mentioned here followed

by the relevant factors existing in the original questionnaire:

1. Technology aspect: suitable software applications such as program management apps,

material tracking systems. Specific monitor and control tools, clear identification of scope

into work packages. Setting projects specific procedures, specific measurements and KPIs.

Learning and development needs communications.

Factors are considered in Governance, Scope & Knowledge Management.

2. Delegation, motivation

Factors are considered in Human Resources Management.

3. Internal Environment, Clear objective settings (vision and mission), Information and

Communication.

Factors are considered in Governance, Scope, Knowledge & communication Management.

4. Relevant information is identified, captured, and communicated in a form and timeframe

that enable people to carry out their responsibilities- Effective monitoring through ongoing

participation of management, separate evaluations

Factors are considered in Governance, Owner and consultant support, Knowledge &

communication Management.

5. Team building and allying target

Factors are considered in Governance & Human Resources Management.

6. Harmony of organization and tone at the top, company cash flow.

Factors are considered in Governance, Human Resources & Cost Management.

7. Instead of defining Stakeholders Management as being "meeting expectations of client,

consultant, subs …etc.", I believe the definition should be: meeting expectations of client and

consultant within the requirements of the contract documents." This is because any client

normally pushes beyond the scope of the contract. Regarding the subcontractors and

suppliers, these should have different factor, say: "Vendors Management", and should not be

about meeting their expectations, but rather about managing and coordinating their scope of

work in the manner that makes them provide their service within the scheduled dates, with

enough clarity and scope definition to avoid conflicts that may hinder their work.

Factors are considered in Owner and consultant support, Scope, Procurement & Contract

Management.

8. Variance Management

Factors are considered in Scope & Contract Management.

9. Social engineering techniques




10. Tendering phase, Proper org chart and reporting lines, Support from top management,

Practical schedules and feasible budgets.

Factors are considered in Governance Schedule, Cost & Human Resources Management.

11. All the above are important. Production Management is absolutely critical. As Bughin

Manyika Woetzel 2017 Reinventing-Construction- a route to higher Productivity-McKinsey

Global Institute report on p.9 [17]

the use of the Last Planner System or something equivalent

is vital for rigorous production planning. construction is both a people and production

process. In addition, selections the builders and the designers at the same time enables the

production process to be designed as the facility is being designed. with good governance (see

e.g. Fischer et al 2017 Integrating project Delivery (Wiley) [18]

this reduces project duration

and cost.

Factors are considered in Quality & Procurement Management.

12. Government Roles (law & regulation, policy, incentive

Factors are considered in Compliance, Contract & Claim Management.

13. Method of procurement; contractor incentivizing

Factors are considered in Procurement, Contract & Claim Management.

14. Contract management

Factor is considered in Contract & Claim Management.

15. Financial Management

Factor is considered in Cost Management.

16. Smoothing work hours

Factor is considered in Human Resources Management.

17. Motivation


18. Human resources


19. Team spirit


20. The project management approach

Factors are considered in Scope, Quality, Schedule & Coast Management.

21. Training of project teams


22. Motivation, fairness, respect for the staff


5. RESULT VALIDATION

The first step in results’ validation is to make sure that sample size was sufficient to give

accurate results.

According to Central Limit theory, the confidence interval of results could be obtained

with 95% confident, through the following equation:

Standard Error = ±

√



Therefore, the highest & lowest accuracy of results could be obtained by using the lowest

and highest standard deviation results in table 1, through the following equations:

Standard Error = ±

√ = ± 0.17 Highest accuracy

Standard Error = ±

√ = ± 0.21 Lowest accuracy

The above equations showed that the standard error will not exceed ± 0.21 with 95%

confident, which represent sufficient accuracy of results.

The second step of validation is to make sure that the project management expert opinion

matches the project manager opinion. Several meetings were held with construction project

managers of residential & commercial buildings in Egypt to validate the questionnaire results.

Project managers have provided their opinion of the success factors separately. Average of

project managers’ response was calculated and compared with the average obtained from the

113 respondents.

The following table includes the success factors of construction project, in descending

order, according to the average of project managers’ opinion.

Table 2: Validation of Results by Project Managers

Factor Av. of PM Av. Of 113

Respondents

1 Cost Management (Commitment to estimated budget) 4.8 4.1

2 Safety Management (Appropriate response to safety hazards) 4.8 3.9

3 Leadership (Management ability to lead project team to achieve

objectives)

4.8 4.0

4 Time Management (Commitment to agreed time schedule) 4.6 4.2

5 Scope Management (Successful completion of approved work) 4.4 4.2

6 Quality Management (Commitment to technical specifications &

requirements)

4.4 4.0

7 Communications Management (Timely exchange of required

information)

4.4 3.9

8 Integration (Effective coordination between different project disciplines) 4.4 3.8

9 Owner and consultant support (Cooperation and support of owner and

consultant with contractor to fulfill the project successfully)

4.4 4.0

10 Procurement Management (Appropriate fulfillment of project needs) 4.2 3.9

11 Material Management (Efficient usage of material) 4 3.8

12 Knowledge Management (Obtaining knowledge required for project

work & documenting lesson learned after execution)

4 3.8

13 Environmental Management (Appropriate response to environmental

hazards)

4 3.5

14 Governance (Compliance with company policy & procedures) 4 3.8

15 Compliance (Commitment to all applicable laws and regulations) 3.8 4.0

16 Change Management (Ability to adopt with new requirements) 3.8 3.7

17 Human Resources Management (Efficient usage of project team) 3.6 3.7

18 Stakeholders Management (Successfully Meeting expectations of

stakeholders such as owner, consultant, supplier, subcontractor ...etc.)

3.6 4.0

19 Sustainability (Ecology, Economics, Politics and Culture) 3.6 3.4

20 Equipment Management (Efficient usage of equipment) 3.4 3.8

21 External Factors (Market conditions ...etc.) 3.4 3.5

22 Risk Management (Appropriate response to business threats &

opportunities)

3.2 3.8

23 Claim Management (Successful management of claims with owner or

vendors)

3.2 3.6



It is obvious that the average of each factor is not the same, however that we need to know

if this difference is statistically significant.

Test of hypotheses was performed to study the significance of difference between average

of project managers’ opinions and the average from 113 respondents.

Null hypothesis (Ho):

Average of project managers’ opinions = Average from 113 respondents

Alternative hypothesis (H1):

Average of project managers’ opinions ≠ Average from 113 respondents

Paired test was recommended due to its ability to study the statistical significance in two

variables, while taking into consideration the order of each value, which we need hear to

check the difference in each factor.

Paired test required two main conditions. First, both samples should be normally

distributed. Second, Sample size should be enough.

Test of normality was performed by Minitab software to check that both samples are

normally distributed and P-value of both average of project managers’ opinions and the

average from 113 respondents are 0.3 & 0.86 respectively (higher than 0.05). This means that

both samples are normal and the first condition is valid.

In order to estimate the minimum sample size, the difference between average of project

managers’ opinions and the average from 113 respondents was calculated and its mean and

standard deviation was 0.2 & 0.5 respectively.

Minimum sample size required to perform Paired test was calculated by Minitab software

to be 5, which means that the second condition is valid.

Paired test was performed by Minitab software and the P-value was 0.7 (higher than 0.05),

which indicates that we failed to reject the null hypothesis.

Final conclusion obtained from the paired test stated that there is No Significant

Difference between average of project managers’ opinions and the average from 113

respondents. Therefore, we can rely on the results of the questionnaire.

6. CONCLUSION

Results of questionnaire revealed that experts believe that top five factors are: Scope, Time,

Quality, Cost & Stakeholders Management in descending order. Paired test confirmed that

there is no significant difference between project managers and expert opinions.

Hence, results of this research could be used to develop an automated system to evaluate

the project in quantitative way, rather than the usual qualitative methods.

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