Critical Success Factor’s in Construction Industry

Abstract

The construction industry is unique and complex compared to other industries as it involves many participants in all trends. With the involvement of different parties in a single project as client, consultants, contractors, subcontractors, many of whom have not work together previously, the possibility that a claim might develop should not be ignored. The adequate planning of a construction project beforehand is inevitable for the proper execution and success of the project. But most of the construction projects worldwide are subjected to cost overruns and delays. These overruns and delays indicate the inadequacy of knowledge of the factors that are contributing towards the success or failure of the project. This study aims to identify the critical success factors for projects in the construction industry. A list of factors were identified from the existing literature and grouped into categories. The study identified 30 success factors classified into 5 groups, which were tested using an elicitation technique. Forty-nine responses were collected from project managers, who had an average or 15 years of project management experience and had participated in more than 15 projects. From the results, the top five most important are (1) Project Organization, (2) Project Manager Competence, (3) Project Risk Management, (4) Effect of stakeholders and (5) Resources management . This lead to the conclusion that both project risk management and Resources management should be considered as critical success factors. Further analysis of the data highlights the importance of scope management and soft skills in Resources management and Project Risk Management respectively. It is anticipated that the information gathered through the study will serve as a positive step in highlighting improvements in claim avoidance practices and will be valuable in the future. Keywords: Critical success factors (CSFs), project manager competencies, risk management, project performance, contractor