Construction

Management
CHAPTER 2
Project life cycle and
success
INTRODUCTION
 The planning, monitoring and control of all aspects of a project
and the motivation of all those involved to achieve the project
objectives on time and to cost, quality and performance is know
as construction project management.
 The art of directing and coordinating human and material
resources through the life of a project by using modern
management techniques
to achieve predetermined goals of scope, cost, time, quality and
participant satisfaction.
 Not all managers are able to cope with the dynamic nature of
projects, where decisions have to be made fast and planning and
control have to be very tight.
 Large projects such as Construction work particularly lends itself
to project management because of the temporary and unique
nature of the work.
 This chapter will look at the project as a whole from
inception to completion.
 It will look at how projects are managed and try to
understand how they are led and what the critical factors
of success are:

 Defining the construction project life cycle.

 Distinguishing specific project management activities and
allocating roles throughout the life cycle.
 Investigating factors which affect the way that projects are
managed.
 Determining the critical factors for project success.
Project life cycle
 The life cycle of a project from a client’s point of view
really starts when there is a formal recognition of project
objectives, generally termed the inception, and through to
the delivery of these objectives – generally called the
completion or project delivery.
 Activities relating to the conception of a project may take
place over an extended period before formal recognition.
Related activities commissioning the project also take place in
the period after formal completion.
 In construction projects, this inception is generally
associated with the commissioning of external consultants
and a life cycle indicating the main elements of its life cycle
 Different parts of a life cycle are often managed by different
people and not all organizations are involved in the project all
the way through from inception to completion of a building
project.
 For example, a main contractor gets involved from tendering
through to handover of the building for the client’s fitting out –
just two parts of the client’s project life cycle, but for them it is a
complete project with an inception and a completion.
 There is a need to be flexible in the view of the construction life
cycle, for different forms of procurement, which put a different
emphasis on different stages of the cycle such as Design,
Build,Finance and Operate (DBFO), which has a strong
contractor provider involvement in the inception, feasibility and
operation phase.
 The end of a construction project is the handover to a facilities
management team, who maintain the structure and services.
 The life cycle of construction projects starts at inception, at the
stage where a client’s business case for a building or a renovation is
communicated to a professional team to develop the constraints.
 Outline planning agreement may have been achieved, but only if
a site has already been chosen.
 The fundamental go ahead will have been reviewed by the
beginning of the inception stage and the main focus for the
project manager at this stage is to define options for project
feasibility and their financial viability or benefits.
 The feasibility stage therefore, can include
 Investigation of alternative site locations
 Funding options
 Design option assessment
 Value enhancement
 Comparative estimates and life cycle costing.
 At the end of this period, a feasibility study needs to test
affordability (fit within an outline budget and cost plan) and
meet constraints (an option to achieve planning permission and give
best value for the client).
2.2 MANAGEMENT
 The word “Management” originates from Old French
ménagement “the art of conducting and directing”, and from Latin
manu agere “to lead by the hand”) Management characterizes the
process of leading and directing all or part of an organization,
often a business, through the deployment and manipulation of
resources (human, financial, material, intellectual or intangible).
Areas of Management;
 Process and Systems management
 Communications management
 Risk and limitation management
 Cost and Supply chain management
 Crisis and Stress management
 Customer relationship management
 Engineering and Facility management
 Enterprise and Marketing management
 Procurement and Skills management
 Project and Resource management
 Process and Quality management
 Time change management
 The client needs to make critical decisions which suit the needs of
their business. A key part of this is to identify and allocate risks and
to carry out a functional analysis to optimize VFM. The user or
facilities management groups may be involved at this stage.
 Strategy deals with how a project is carried out and controlled,
such as:
 The procurement route that is chosen
 The cost
 The program
 The control systems
 The quality management and
 The methodology for construction.
 Strategy is a partly parallel activity to feasibility as the viability is
often dependent on the strategy
 For example, the funding of the project is tied up with the program
time and the cash flow availability
 Strategy also needs to identify the right procurement method and
determine the organization structure of the project.
 A key part of this stage is to produce a project execution
plan (PEP) that fully analyses and allocates the risk issues. It also
specifies how the project is going to be planned and organized
through the subsequent stages of the project life cycle.
 The brief needs to be developed to ensure a full understanding of
the client’s requirements and the design and construction
strategies need to be coordinated within the project constraints.
 Outputs include a PEP. If a construction manager can be brought
in at this stage more reliable information on construction planning
and methodology is available.
Pre-construction (design and tendering) appoints the full design and
construction team and includes the full development of the design
scheme, detailed drawings, tendering and mobilization of resources
for construction.
 There is a clear responsibility to manage design and procurement
and to identify a start date for construction which is related to the
handover and occupation of the building.
 Risk and value factors continue to be managed so that the client
gets best value.
 Outputs include further statutory permissions such as
 Building regulations,
 Integrated design drawings,
 Tender documents,
 Contractor appointment,
 An agreed contract price and a contract program
 A pre-tender health and safety plan.
 It is extremely difficult to control diverse design activity to meet
the deadlines, anticipate the timing and nature of statutory
agreements or even demands and to predict a market price
which will comply with the budget constraints.
 The construction phase is self explanatory, but it has a
particular emphasis on
 The control of time, quality and cost and
 The management of many other issues such as supply chain,
health and safety planning, the environment and change.
 Outputs here will include
 Construction stage programs,
 Construction health and safety plans,
 Method statements,
 Cash flow forecasts,
 Quality assurance schemes and change orders.
 In taking on a contractor, there is a risk of conflict if
information is not available, if things get changed a lot, or the
project is delayed.
 Conflict management, leadership and team building skills are
used a lot in this stage.
 Engineering commissioning comes at the latter end of construction. It
is unique as its outputs should include the efficient functioning of
the building.
 The management of the process includes the signing off of various
regulatory requirements such as building regulations, fire and
water certificates, gas and electrical tests.
 Handover is sometimes called close out,because it suggests a
focused period of preparation to ensure the project and the
documentation are in order and the facilities team and users are
properly briefed and inducted.
 The main output is not documentation, but to pass on the
knowledge for running the building safely and efficiently.
 Documentation and a health and safety file (HSF) are handed
over for the safe and efficient use of the building’s systems and
maintenance schedules.
 Obligation is not limited by profession and there is a
responsibility to put defects right if and when they occur after
handover.
 The client’s occupational fit out follows full or sectional
completion of the contractor work and may well involve a new
project team.
 This period often has intensive collaboration with user groups and
facility management team teams. During this period there is a
need to commission equipment, move personnel and induct
occupiers in the use of the building and in its emergency
procedures.
 Outputs include fitting out and the production of health and safety
policies, user manuals and training programs.
 Post-project appraisal and review is the final stage.
 The objective is to evaluate success in meeting the objectives as
set out in the business case/project brief and to look at lessons
learnt and to carry forward improvements, where relevant, to the
next project or phase.
 Outputs from this stage are
 Client satisfaction surveys,
 Production motivations and
 Project process reports, which may inform projects for the future.
 Project team roles
 It is acknowledged earlier that the leadership of the construction
project may change during the project life cycle under some types of
procurement.
 For example, in traditional procurement it is most likely that the
architect or the engineer will take the lead in the inception and design
stages and will act on behalf of the client.
 During construction the main contractor will have a leading role.
 For large or complex projects the client appoints an executive
project manager with a direct leadership of the project team through
whom the client communicates.
 In this case, there will be a single point of contact for the client
coordinating the design, construction and other professional roles
 The supply chain is managed day-to-day through the communication
links and things can go badly wrong if the client is allowed to pursue
direct contact through their contractual links, thus undermining the
co-ordination role of their project manager and the design and
construction managers.
 The project manager is the leader of the team and acts on behalf of
the client as well as trying to maintain an efficient project team
Project management is about balancing the needs of all the participants
in the project.
 The design manager’s role is to co-ordinate the various design
functions and if necessary specialist design expertise as and
when needed. This role is also traditional.
 The main contractor or construction manager’s role is to
 tender specialist packages,
 set up site procedures
 integrate the construction program
 the interfaces between specialist packages.
 Conciliation is a key role for the project manager to
manage disputes, discrepancies, omissions and changes so that the
team works smoothly.
 Choosing the project manager: skills and functions
 Choosing the project manager is important to the culture of the
project and will be the responsibility of the client with guidance
from advisors.
 It is quite common for legal or other professions to provide early
advice in these areas.
 There is a list of eight characteristics of a certified project manager
including
 an open
 positive ‘can do’
 attitude
 common sense
 open mindedness
 adaptability
 inventiveness
 prudent risk taker (weighing up the risk)
 Fairness
 commitment.
 From a client’s point of view these qualities will make the
project manager easier to work with, reliable and realistic
 From a project team point of view being open minded and
taking the lead in fairness and commitment are expected of
someone who has high expectations of their performance and
has to deserve team loyalty.
 The project manager’s role will be related to the procurement
route chosen by the client.
 In the case of the executive structure, the project manager
manages all aspects of the project from inception to completion.
In a traditional procurement the project manager changes in
different stages of the project life cycle.
 Either way there are four key tasks for the project
manager acting on behalf of the client:
 Guide and advise the client.
 Manage the resources to carry out project activities.
 Build the project team.
 Ensure customer requirements are met.
 The resources managed will have a different focus at
different stages of the life cycle.
 For example,
 at the inception stage managing funding is critical
 at the design stage it is a matter of managing information
 at the construction stage physical resources such as
materials, plant and labor become important.
 Ethics in project management

 Four important attributes for a project manager include

 credibility (technical and administrative)
 sensitivity
 leadership
 the ability to handle stress.
 These are often connected with the professional status of a
manager to give client confidentiality and updating
knowledge.
 In respect to leadership, there is a strong point to be made
for a code of ethics.
 The ethical position for a project manager is in the middle,
representing the interests of all parties fairly to one another.
 Project complexity
 The degree of complexity is not directly dependent on value.
 The overall rating has been shown to be useful for assessing:
 the experience of staff required,
 the workload generated and
 the degree of systemization and formality required.
 Organizational complexity increases with the number of
organizations and stakeholders that are involved and the degree
of integration of their work – high for a construction project even
of a small size.
 Resource complexity increases with the value of the project and
the significance and the range of the resources. In terms of
construction, this ranges from very small to extremely large.
 Technical complexity increases with the use of non-standard
technology, the building constraints which exist and the
complexity of the technology, for example, the repair of a
historic building’s roof compared with the use of prefabricated
trusses.
 Determining the critical factors for success
 Major projects have been subject to cost and time overruns and
the performance of the product has often fallen short of the
criteria of the client let alone the expectations.
 In addition to this, the profitability of the industry has been in
question and major investors are reconsidering their
exposure to certain sectors of it.
 How do you define a project?
 What is it that makes a project a success for the various parties
involved?
 Are there inherent factors common to all projects or is it in the
nature of the project ?
Are the factors within the control of the project team or are they, as
in the case of political factors, to be responded to?
 Do you select projects which have built in success and by
definition avoid others?
 10 factors of success, as determined from a survey of project
managers.
 The critical application to construction is noted
that it is clear that
 The brief and its interpretation,
 Effective scheduling and
 Control together with continued client
involvement at the highest levels.
 It is clear that success depends upon:
 The degree of strategic planning
 The ability to integrate
 Getting the right person to match the job.