MOHAMED NADA

IDL Group 2

Formative Assessment 01

Project Management in the construction industry can now be considered to be a relatively

mature discipline. The body of knowledge that exists to support it in its key goals of delivering
successful project outcomes is extensive and is supplemented by considerable experience.
Despite this, the record of project delivery in construction remains poor. As many as 50% of all
projects end up failing to meet the delivery targets set for them. Critically analyse the reasons
behind this performance. If project management is to improve its track record in project delivery,
discuss how reasons behind project failure can be fully understood.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --- -- ---- ------ ----- ----- ----- ------ ----- ------ANSWER PLAN
1. Introduction.

2. Reasons behind construction project failure.

Critically analyse

2.1. Related to the industry Environment and nature.

2.2. Related to the clients.

Construction
Project Failure

2.3. Related to the consultants.

Discuss

2.4. Related to the contractors.

3. Improving the construction project tracking record.

4. Conclusion.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --- -- ---- ------ ----- ----- ----- ------ ----- ------1. Introduction.

Project Management as discipline was initiated in 1940 for the atomic bomb project. Then it

has been transferred to another military projects through the 1950s. the body of knowledge

for the project management generally have been developed by some institution like PMI and
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MOHAMED NADA
IDL Group 2

Formative Assessment 01

APM and also specifically for the construction industry like CIOB and RICS. despite the

most of the techniques and tools (like PERT and CPM) seems to be initiated by other

industries than construction, the application of these tools and other tools have been

extensively used and developed in the construction projects. Actually this wide usage and

development is coming as a result of the construction project complexity and difficulty nature

which also has a great impact on the industry performance and make it relatively poor when

compared to other industries .

This report will analyze the reasons for this poor performance then

establishing an

understand for how these reasons can be mitigated.

2. Reasons behind construction project failure.

It is widely accepted that a project is successful when it is completed on time within budget and

with the required quality. But in the construction project there is other factors must be

considered like Safety records and sustainability level or rating. Generally most of the

construction projects are completed with a delay and over budget. This fact came as a result of

some factors which form a unique combination of challenges and obstacles for each project.

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MOHAMED NADA
IDL Group 2

Formative Assessment 01

these factors are related to industry environment and nature, clients, consultants, and

contractors.

2.1. Related to the industry Environment and nature.

Construction Project's complexity. It is coming from the fragmented nature of the

project. A lot of stake holder with different interests / strategic objectives and with

different level of power.

Environmental factors. constructing of building cannot be executed in a environmental

controlled space like manufacturing of computers or cars. The project will be impacted

by the weather, soil condition , surrounding building and infrastructure.

Political Issues. Like the governmental rules, the applicable laws and regulation also

importing procedures.

Safety Issues. The wide interaction between manpower and moving equipments and

the new desire to construct a unique and complex building envelope expose the

construction labor for a high level of risk in safety and of course accidents have a great

impact not only on the project success but also on the industry reputation.

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MOHAMED NADA
IDL Group 2

Formative Assessment 01

Sustainability Issues. The poor reputation of the construction industry in the

sustainability related issues can cause some obstacles from the community groups and

repel the young people from joining the industry.

2.2. Related to the clients.

Client Type (Size and Experience). Client organization size and experience are

affecting the management of the communications and coordination between the

different stakeholders.

Project Briefing and data collection. practicing the project briefing as a one-off activity

causes the following problem:

Little or poor initial assessment of clients real needs.

Unclear roles and responsibilities.

Unrealistic project programming and timescales.

Missing or imprecise or conflicting information being made available to the

design team for interpretation.

Difficulty of the client actually visualising the finished project from the design
information supplied by the designers.

Lack of appreciation of the real needs of actual end-users at the start of the
project.

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MOHAMED NADA
IDL Group 2

Formative Assessment 01

Lack of appreciation by the client of the real constraints faced by the design
team in developing solutions to the needs identified in the brief.

Financial Capabilities. insufficient funding. causes a delay in payment progress which

will have impact not only on time but also on the project quality and team spirit.

2.3. Related to the consultants.

Delay or Poor Design. The design process is very complicated and depend on

managing the interdependences between the different discipline and require

coordinating with the market supplier and specialist . This complexity require a high

level of management experience and competencies. This raise another problem

regarding who shall be the project manager? architect, structural engineer, or... actually

the project manager must be a person who has a management education background

and knowledge with a sufficient experience in the construction projects (In fact this

humanity/ personality factor have great impact on the design quality and completion).

Improper condition of contract and scope preparing. Some of (if not most of) designers

who preparing the scope of work and condition for the construction contract are aiming

to transfer the responsibility of the poor design or incomplete detailed drawings to the

contractor (who is not specialist in these matter). this causes a lot of conflict and leads

to series of disputes. the interesting points of these disputes that most of them are
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MOHAMED NADA
IDL Group 2

Formative Assessment 01

between the client and contractors and the consultant play the role of judging between

them (despite he is responsible for this disputes).

Insufficient tender period. Squeezing the tender stage period due to delay in design or

any other reasons affects the quality of the contractor estimating and also the quality of

the tender evaluation and will have a great impact on the construction activities.

Delay in submittals reviewing. This includes submittals for material, shop drawings and

also for the reviewing and replying for the contractor clarifications and even the

reviewing of the contractor invoices will affecting the project progress.

2.4. Related to the contractors.

Lack of competent resources. The bad reputation for the contracting job ( More time,

low salaries, more risk...etc) repel the young people from joining the industries at the

same time the old people have a difficulties to learn the new technologies and software

and preferring to use the traditional methods.

Dependencies on Subcontracting. It requires a huge effort to coordinate the relationship

between the subcontractor's work and to auditing the quality of the works.

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MOHAMED NADA
IDL Group 2

Formative Assessment 01

Interest to achieve the maximum profit. Concerns to gain the maximum profit from the

project impacting the quality and can impact the safety record also.

3. Improving the construction project tracking record.

For the client and project brief issues: Barrett and Stanley (1999) as being key areas by which

practice could be improved:

Establishment of client empowerment.

Management of project dynamics.

Appropriate end-user involvement.

Appropriate visualisation techniques.

Appropriate team building processes.

For the Consultant related issues. Looking for the new integrated project delivery instead of the

traditional procurement method will enhance the coordination and communication between the

stake holders . for instances the T5 Agreement for Heathrow airport is a ggod example of the

new integrated project delivery.

For the Contractor issues. Increasing the contractor competencies by promoting for the

professional institution like CIOB, RICS and CCS will have a potential improvement for the

contractors' competencies. Also improving the right protection in the condition of contracts can

solve a lot of disputes and clarify the issues to the contractors.

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MOHAMED NADA
IDL Group 2

Formative Assessment 01

Promoting for the new visualization and BIM software. To enhance the design quality and

clashing detection. also it will improve the quality of the coordination at the construction stage

beside that it can improve the monitoring and controlling of the time and cost by utilizing the BIM

4D and 5D software.

Improving the industry reputation. Beside the focusing on the improving of construction industry

performance which will enhance the industry reputation it needs also for some promoting to the

industries to increase the community awareness of the industry challenges and the efforts to

overcome these challenges and attract the young people for the industry. Some TV program like

"Contractor from Hell" shall be faced by other program to show the other face of the

construction.

4. Conclusion.

As a matter fact the countries civilization is measured by the maturity of its infrastructure and

buildings design. Another fact that the life on earth is completely depends on the construction

industry to provide the required spaces/ buildings for the different desired function.

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MOHAMED NADA
IDL Group 2

Formative Assessment 01

Launching from these two facts, the construction industries' decision makers will have a great

motivation to enhance the industry performance and improve the interaction with the

communities to attract more competent resources and develop more researches.

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