from Indian construction projects
K.C.Iyer
a,*
,K.N.Jha
b
a
Department of Management Studies,Indian Institute of Technology,Hauz Khas,New Delhi 110016,India b
Department of Civil Engineering,Indian Institute of Technology,Kanpur,Uttar Pradesh 208016,India
Received 2December 2003;received in revised form 30March 2004;accepted 8October 2004
Abstract
This paper presents the findings of a questionnaire survey conducted on the factors affecting cost performance of Indian construc-tion projects.Factor analysis of the response on the 55success and failure Ôattributes Õidentified through literature review and per-sonal interview extracted seven factors.Critical success factors obtained by the analyses are:project manager Õs competence;top management support;project manager Õs coordinating and leadership skill;monitoring and feedback by the participants;coordination among project participants ;and owners competence and favourable climatic condition .However factors adversely affecting the cost performances of projects,are:conflict among project participants;ignorance and lack of knowledge;presence of poor project specific attributes and non existence of cooperation;hostile socio economic and climatic condition;reluctance in timely decision;aggressive com-petition at tender stage ;and short bid preparation time .Further analysis indicates coordination among project participants as the most significant of all the factors having maximum positive influence on cost performance.Ó2004Elsevier Ltd and IPMA.All rights reserved.
Keywords:Cost;Managing projects;Success;Coordination;Factor analysis
1.Introduction
Measuring the performance of any construction pro-ject in terms of success or failure though looks simple,is in fact a very complex process.Modern construction projects even moderate in size are generally multidisci-plinary in nature and they involve participation of designers,contractors,subcontractors,specialists,con-struction managers,and consultants.With the increas-ing size of the project,number of participants in the project also increases.The objectives or goals of all par-ticipants need not be same even in a given project.Hence to define the success or failure of a project without spec-ifying the participant and without specifying the criteria
for judging the performance holds no meaning.Success for one participant may be a failure for the other partic-ipant depending on the perspective with which each one is looking at the outcome.Incidentally,past researchers have employed different criteria,such as compliance to schedule,cost and quality to judge the project perfor-mance.However,in the present paper only the factors affecting Ôcost compliance Õcriteria have been discussed.Researchers in the past have identified various causes or reasons (called ‘‘attributes ’’in this paper)for project success.Their works are area specific or project specific and are mostly from the developed countries and based on researchers Õexperience on completed projects.Fur-ther these researchers have identified the critical attri-butes that are responsible for success of the projects and they advise that these attributes should be carefully handled and if possible be further exploited to achieve greater success.There are also certain other attributes
0263-7863/$30.00Ó2004Elsevier Ltd and IPMA.All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/j.ijproman.2004.10.003
*
Corresponding author.Tel.:+911126591209;fax:+911126862620.
E-mail address:kciyer@dms.iitd.ac.in (K.C.Iyer).
www.elsevier.com/locate/ijproman
International Journal of Project Management 23(2005)
283–295
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
2.Objectives and methodology
The objectives of the study set are as follows:
To identify the relative importance of success and failure attributes in Indian construction projects as perceived by the professionals including owners and contractors of the construction industry.
To understand the latent properties of these success and failure attributes.
The study is however restricted to construction stage of projects and the study required a huge amount of documented data on completed projects.Due to non-availability of documented data of completed projects for study in India,a questionnaire survey approach is considered to establish the impact of various attributes on project performance.Attributes affecting project suc-cess and failure are listed out through literature survey and interviews with select professionals from construc-tion industry.Pilot survey is then undertaken and neces-sary modifications in the questionnaire are carried out. Questions are framed to ascertain the impact of these attributes individually on project performance evaluat-ing parameters such as completion schedule,project cost,project quality and project disputes.
3.Literature review
ÔProject success is repeatable and it is possible tofind certain success attributesÕhas been the genesis of many re-search studies in this area since1960s.These studies range from theoretical work based on experience of researcher on one end to structured research work on the other end.Some of the past researchers have adopted question-naire survey approach for data collection and employed mathematical tools like AHP,Neural networks and sta-tistical techniques like factor analysis and multivariate regression,etc.,for analysis and drawing conclusions. But these researchers seem to use their own performance criteria for measuring success and not much commonality appears among various performance criteria adopted by these researchers.The criteria included the conventional ones like schedule,cost,quality to recent criteria like perceived performance,client satisfaction,etc.Summa-ries of important conclusions of previous studies[1–13] are given in Table1to provide an overview.4.Identification of attributes affecting project performance
Literature review reveals a number of critical attri-butes for different types of projects viz.,construction projects,research and development projects,defence projects,etc.It can be seen from Table1that most of these studies have focused on specific success measuring parameters,and the critical success factors derived are either applicable to a particular industry or contract type.It can be also observed from Table1that almost all the studies have been carried out in the developed countriesÕcontext and theirfindings may not be relevant to the developing countries.However,taking lead from above studies and through personal interviews with con-struction professionals of India,55project success/pro-ject failure attributes were identified.Though the list of55attributes may not be called exhaustive due to the vast magnitude and fragmented nature of construc-tion industry,the list covered attributes pertaining to a large variety of construction projects.A survey was then framed to get respondentsÕviews on impact of these attributes on project outcome(success or failure).The performance evaluation parameters considered to mea-sure the impacts of these attributes were restricted to ÔscheduleÕ,ÔcostÕ,ÔqualityÕandÔoccurrence of disputeÕto limit the size of the questionnaire.However impact of these attributes onÔcostÕparameter is only discussed in this paper and only the relevant portion of the ques-tionnaire is given in Appendix A.Afive-point scale was used to measure the attributesÕinfluence on cost perfor-mance.In this scale,1representsÔadversely affecting the cost of the projectÕ,2representsÔsignificantly affecting the costÕ,3representsÔmarginally affecting the costÕ,4 representsÔno effect on the costÕ,and5representsÔhelps in saving in the cost of the projectÕ.
A total of450questionnaires were mailed to top In-dian construction industry professionals covering about 50top and medium size organizations,selected randomly from across the country.A total of112completed re-sponses were received giving a response rate of%25%. The responses are stored and analysed using SPSS soft-ware.The respondents included the owners,contractors and consultants.Since the consultants were employed by the owners to take care of the ownersÕinterests,and that the consultantsÕresponses were not significantly different from that of owners,they were merged with ownersÕre-sponses.The next step was to rank the attributes in the order of their criticality.From thefive point scale used in the questionnaire,the mean scores of responses(l) for different project attributes are interpreted in the man-ner as given in Table2.Depending upon the mean scores of responses for various attributes,the attributes were then segregated in three groups:thefirst group(with l P4.5)that showed positive contribution;the second group(with4.5 Summary of studies in thefield of project success/failure factors Author Summary of the past works Rubin and Seeling[1]Authors assess the impact of project managerÕs experience on the projectÕs success/failure.They use technical performance of the project as a measure of success and conclude the following (a)Project managerÕs previous experience has minimal impact on the projectÕs performance (b)Size of the previously managed project does affect the managerÕs performance Avots[2]This is a theoretical study to understand the reasons for project failure.The author concludes that choice of wrong project manager,the unplanned project termination,and unsupportive top management are the main reasons of failure Sayles and Chandler[3]Authors conclude the following factors as critical for success of a project Project managerÕs competence,scheduling,control systems and responsibilities,monitoring and feedback and continuing involvement in the project Martin[4]Author concludes the following factors as critical for success of a project Define goals,select project organizational philosophy,general management support,organize and delegate authority, select project team,allocate sufficient resources,provide for control and information mechanics,require planning and review Baker et al.[5]The authors suggest that instead of time,cost and performance as the project success criteria,perceived performance should be used as the success criteria.They observe the following success factors Clear goals,goal commitment of project team,on site project manager,adequate funding to completion,adequate project team capability,accurate initial cost estimates,minimum start-up difficulties,planning and control techniques, task(vs.social orientation),absence of bureaucracy Cleland and King[6]Authors identify the following success factors Project summary,operational concept,top management support,financial support,logistic requirements,facility support,market intelligence(who is the client),project schedule,executive development and training,manpower and organization,acquisition,information and communication channels and project review Locke[7]Author identifies the following success factors Make project commitments known,project authority from the top,appoint competent project manager,set up control mechanisms(schedules,etc.),progress meetings Hughes[8]The author identifies that the projects fail because of improper basic managerial principles,such as the improper focus of the management system,by rewarding the wrong actions,and the lack of communication of goals Morris and Hough[9]Authors identify the following success factors through a study of eight large and complex projects having great potential economic impact but poorly managed and generally failed Project objectives,technical uncertainty innovation,politics,community involvement,schedule duration urgency, financial contract legal problems and implementation problems Schultz et al.[10]Authors classify critical success factors in two groups as given below and conclude that these groups affect project performances at different phases of implementation (a)The Strategic Group consisting of factors like project mission,top management support and project scheduling (b)Tactical group consisting of factors like client consultation and personnel selection and training Pinto and Slevin[11]Continuing the previous work authors evaluate the relative importance of tactical group and strategic group of factors over the project life cycle.They conclude that when external success measures are employed,planning factors dominate tactical factors throughout the project life cycle Chua et al.[12]Budget performance is given the primary importance in the study.Through an application of neural network approach authors identify the eight important project management attributes associated with achieving successful budget performance:(1)number of organisational levels between the project manager and craft workers;(2)amount of detailed design completed ate the start of construction;(3)number of control meetings during the construction phase;(4)number of budget updates;(5)implementation of a constructability program;(6)team turnover;(7)amount of money expended on controlling the project;(8)the project managerÕs technical experience They also claim that their model can be used as a predictive tool to forecast budget performance of a construction project Chan et al.[13]They identify a set of project success factors for design and build(D&B)projects and examine the relative importance of these factors on project outcome.Using factor analysis from the response of53participants on31variables they extracted six project success factors.These are project team commitment,contractorÕs competencies,risk and liability assessment,clientÕs competencies,end-usersÕneeds,and constraints imposed by end-users.Further Project team commitment,clientÕs competencies,and contractorÕs competencies were found to be important to bring successful project outcome from multiple regressionfindingshaving no significant impact on the project outcome and the third group(with l63.5)indicating negative im-pact.A total of30attributes emerged infirst group (l P4.5),only3attributes in group2(4.5 the following expression: Relative importance indexðRIIÞ¼P w AxN ;ð1Þ where w is the weight given to each attribute by the respondents and ranges from1to5,A is the highest weight(i.e.,5in this case),and N is the total number of respondents. The attributes of thefirst group(with l P4.5)were arranged on their descending order of RII values and ranked.The highest RII indicates the most critical suc-cess attributes with rank1and the next indicating the next most critical success attribute with rank2and so on.On the other hand,attributes of the third group (with l63.5)were arranged in the ascending order of the RII and ranked.The lowest RII indicates the most critical failure attribute with rank1,the next indicating the next most critical failure factor2and so on.Separate lists of the success attributes and the failure attributes are given along with their RII and ranks in Tables3 and4,respectively. 5.Success attributes Using the RII,the rank orders of attributes were ob-tained for all responses as well as separately for owner and contractor responses.The high ranked attributes (top5in Table3)that are observed in three categories of responses:all reponse,owner,and contractor are dis-cussed below.The all response column(columns2and3 in Table3)shows the most important factor to be mon-itoring and feedback by PM with RII=0.958,followed by coordinating ability and rapport of PM with top man-agement,monitoring and feedback by project team mem-bers positive attitude,and technical capabilities of PM as indicated by their decreasing RIIÕs.Here the PM(pro-ject manager)refers to contractorÕs project manager. The owners view(columns4and5in Table3)the coordination ability and rapport of PM with top man-agement as the most important attribute(RII=0.979) followed by the monitoring and feedback by team mem-bers and monitoring and feedback by PM.Also owners realise the importance of their own timely decision either directly or through their engineer as fourth most suc-cessful attribute. The most important attribute in contractorÕs view (columns6and7in Table3)is found to be the project managerÕs technical capability(RII=0.957)followed by his authority to takefinancial decision and select key team members,and positive attitude of PM and partici-pants and effective monitoring and feedback. The importance of the attribute monitoring and feed-back can also be gauged from the fact that almost all the surveyed companies have their MIS(Management Information System)in place.The companies do insist on getting the feedback from site management at regular interval. The reason of attribute,coordinating ability and rap-port of PM with top management being given the impor-tance is due to the fact that most of the times timely help from top management in getting the resources or getting critical decision can have far reaching implications on cost performance.This is especially true for short dura-tion projects where each day of delay can have large det-rimental effect on cost. The emergence of positive attitude of PM and project participants among topfive attributes substantiates the widely held view that many difficult things can be made simple and workable with a positive attitude.Subse-quent to analysis of responses during validation stage of researchfindings,it has been observed that the sur-veyed companies organise regular training programmes to generate a sense of belongingness and create positive attitude in their project managers.Project managerÕs technical ability getting high rank(in top5in all re-sponses and in contractorÕs response)implies the realisa-tion of high importance of this activity by organisation. High technical skill of project manager indicated by PMÕs academic record is ensured during the selection process itself in most of the surveyed companies. Table2 Interpretation of various ranges of mean values of responses pertaining to project attributes Project performance evaluation parameter Range of mean values Group1Group2Group3 l P4.5 4.5 Table4lists the group3attributes having(l63.5), i.e.,attributes causing adverse effect on cost perfor-mance of project.It can be seen from the scale of ques-tionnaire,lesser the value of mean value of responses on any attribute,more severe will it be.Hence the rank or-der is decided based on increasing(ascending)values of RIIÕs of attributes.The table actually lists the failure attributes.It can be seen from the table that there is a clear consensus between the two groups representing contractors and owners in the ranking of most critical failure attribute.They all have rated Poor human re-source management and labour strike as the most criti-cal failure attribute.The next top ranked failure attributes are negative attitude of PM and project partic-ipants(0.329),inadequate project formulation in the beginning(0.333). In addition the contractors have also ranked vested interest of client representative in not getting the project completed in time as the most critical attribute.The interviewees narrated a number of projects that faced se-vere cost and schedule overrun due to this reason.The owners also tend to accept this fact by placing this attri-bute among topfive critical failure attributes. Some of the other failure attributes ranking high in the list are conflicts between PM and top management, the project ailments like ignorance and lack of knowledge, and indecisiveness. Subsequent to thefinding of ranks of all success and failure attributes,their ranks under owner and contrac-tor respondents are compared and SpearmanÕs rank cor-relation coefficient R s is found.It is observed that while there is a strong agreement between owner and contrac-tor for failure attributes(R s=0.910),they seem to differ in success attributes(R s=0.271).It means that while there is an agreement between the two sets of respon-dents about the causes of the failure,there is difference in opinion towards the reasons for the successful cost performance of the project. 7.Critical success and failure factors In the present study,factor analysis is performed sep-arately on group of30success attributes and23failure Table3 Critical success attributes of projects(l P4.5) Project attributes All response Owner Contractor RII Rank RII Rank RII Rank 1Effective monitoring and feedback by PM0.95810.96930.9434 2Coordinating ability and rapport of PM with top management0.95820.97910.9297 3Effective monitoring and feedback by the project team members0.95530.97420.9298 4Positive attitude of PM,and project participants0.94740.95060.9433 5Project managerÕs technical capability0.93850.925110.9571 6Understanding operational difficulties by the owner engineer thereby taking appropriate decisions 0.93460.928100.9434 7Timely decision by the owner or his engineer(reluctance or otherwise)0.93170.940.88623 8Selection of PM with proven track record at an early stage by top management0.92580.93870.90719 9Authority to take day to day decisions by the PMÕs team at site0.92490.925110.92310 10Scope and nature of work well defined in the tender0.922100.925110.91912 11Monitoring and feedback by top management0.921110.95850.87126 12Understanding of responsibilities by various project participants0.921120.93080.90716 13Leadership quality of PM0.917130.911160.9269 14Top managementÕs enthusiastic support to the project manager(PM)and project team at site0.916140.918150.91413 15Coordinating ability and rapport of PM with his team members and sub-contractor0.916150.923140.90716 16Project managerÕs authority to takefinancial decision,selecting key team members,etc.0.910160.882260.9502 17Commitment of all parties to the project0.906170.5200.92111 18Coordinating ability and rapport of PM with owner representatives0.903180.900170.90716 19Coordinating ability and rapport of PM with other contractors at site0.903190.880270.9366 20Top managementÕs backing up the plans and identify critical activities0.902200.900170.90420 21Regular budget update0.9210.887220.91413 22Delegating authority to project manager by top management0.7220.884240.91413 23Training the human resources in the skill demanded by the project0.885230.885230.88622 24Ability to delegate authority to various members of his team by PM0.884240.882250.88624 25Construction control meetings0.882250.875290.321 26Favourable political&economic environment0.882260.93080.80830 27Favourable climatic condition at the site0.881270.7190.85927 28Availability of resources(funds,machinery,material,etc.) as planned throughout the project duration 0.879280.880270.87925 29Monitoring and feedback by client0.870290.2210.83729 30Developing&maintaining a short and informal line of communication among project team0.853300.850300.85728 K.C.Iyer,K.N.Jha/International Journal of Project Management23(2005)283–295287attributes.Factor analysis is a powerful method of sta-tistical analysis that aims at providing greater insight of relationship among numerous correlated,but seem-ingly unrelated,variables in terms of a relatively few underlying factor variate[15,16].Many researchers from other areas including politics,sociology,economics,hu-man–machine systems,accident research,taxonomy, biology,medicine,geology,and construction manage-ment have also applied this technique[13,17–19].Factor analysis is performed for responses of all respondents as well as separately for owner and contractor responses. While the all response set has given some meaningful interpretations,the variables emerging in various factors under isolated response sets of contractor and owner have been found out to be jumbled and not leading to any meaningful interpretation.Hence the analysis and subsequent discussion is restricted to factor analysis of all responses.Since the factors extracted using principle component analysis are orthogonal and contain a large number of overlapping attributes across various factors it is not amenable to understand.So oblique rotation using varimax rotation is employed.Altogether seven success factors are extracted for each group of success attributes and failure attributes.In the case of success attributes group,these factors explain a total of about 75%of the variance whereas for the failure attributes group,factors extracted explain about70%of the vari-ance.Details of the critical success factors and critical failure factors are presented in Tables5and6, respectively.7.1.Critical success factors The description of success factors is given in the fol-lowing sections. 7.1.1.Project managerÕs competence This has four aspects associated with it.Thefirst is the inherent traits that the project manager has such as his technical capability,leadership quality,and his positive attitude.The second aspect is the empowerment of his team through delegation of authority to take day to day decisions,making his team understand their responsibilities and generating a sense of commitment in them,developing and maintaining a short and infor-mal line of communication among his team,and train-ing the human resources in the skill demanded by the project.The third aspect is to get empowered himself though demanding authority to takefinancial decision, and selecting key team members,etc.,and getting the re-quired resources(funds,machinery,material,etc.)as planned throughout the project duration from his higher ups.It is not enough to possess the skills mentioned above unless the Project manager exerts himself for the project by getting involved in the project through regular budget update and taking active part in con-struction control meetings.All these four characteristics: inherent or personal traits;empowering team;getting empowered;and getting involved with the project are typical characteristics of a competent project manger. Several attributes emerging in this factor(Table5)also Table4 Critical failure attributes of projects(l63.5) Project attributes All response Owner Contractor RII Rank RII Rank RII Rank 1Poor human resource management and labour strike0.30910.29510.3291 2Negative attitude of PM,and project participants0.34120.35030.3293 3Inadequate project formulation in the beginning0.34630.35540.3334 4Vested interest of client representative in not getting the project completed in time0.35040.36550.3291 5Conflicts between PM and top management0.35550.34520.3708 6Mismatch in capabilities of client and architect0.36760.37460.3577 7Conflicts between PM and other outside agency such as owner, sub-contractor or other contractors 0.36870.38080.3505 8Reluctance in timely decision by PM0.37680.39090.3566 9Lack of understanding of operating procedure by the PM0.39190.37970.40713 10Conflicts among team members0.391100.390100.39311 11Ignorance of appropriate planning tools and techniques by PM0.397110.395110.40012 12Holding key decisions in abeyance0.400120.411130.38510 13Reluctance in timely decision by top management0.406130.431140.3719 14Harsh climatic condition at the site0.415140.395120.44416 15Hostile political&economic environment0.430150.445160.40814 16Tendency to pass on the blame to others0.441160.445160.43615 17Hostile social environment0.455170.442150.47118 18Project completion date specified but not yet planned by the owner0.478180.495180.45417 19Uniqueness of the project activities requiring high technical know-how0.559190.5200.51519 20Urgency emphasized by the owner while issuing tender0.588200.575190.60820 21Size and value of the project being large0.672210.630210.73322 22Aggressive competition at tender stage0.724220.774230.65221 23Presence of crisis management skill of PM0.771230.730220.82923 288K.C.Iyer,K.N.Jha/International Journal of Project Management23(2005)283–295 address these characteristics only hence the name of the factor. 7.1.2.Top management support The top management means both the contractorsÕand ownersÕtop management here.From the ownersÕside the attributes under this factor are:understanding operational difficulties by the owner engineer thereby taking appropriate decisions,and timely decision by the owner or his engineer.From the contractorsÕside the attributes are:top managementÕs enthusiastic sup-port to the project manager(PM)and project team at site,top managementÕs backing up the plans and iden-tify critical activities,delegating authority to project manager by top management,selection of PM with pro-ven track record at an early stage by top management, Details of factor and the attributes Factor loading Variance explained Project managerÕs competence Authority to take day to day decisions by the PMÕs team at site0.80022.151% Construction control meetings0.795 Regular budget update0.795 Availability of resources(funds,machinery,material,etc.)as planned throughout the project duration0.776 Project managerÕs authority to takefinancial decision,selecting key team members,etc.0.749 Understanding of responsibilities by various project participants0.740 Project managerÕs technical capability0.701 Commitment of all parties to the project0.665 Developing and maintaining a short and informal line of communication among project team0.4 Training the human resources in the skill demanded by the project0.632 Leadership quality of PM0.574 Positive attitude of PM,and project participants0.408 Top managementÕs support Understanding operational difficulties by the owner engineer thereby taking appropriate decisions0.78611.410% Top managementÕs enthusiastic support to the project manager(PM)and project team at site0.751 Top managementÕs backing up the plans and identify critical activities0.666 Delegating authority to project manager by top management0.592 Selection of PM with proven track record at an early stage by top management0.500 Timely decision by the owner or his engineer(reluctance or otherwise)0.424 Developing and maintaining a short and informal line of communication among project team0.407 Project managerÕs coordinating and leadership skill a Coordinating ability and rapport of PM with other contractors at site0.88010.279% Coordinating ability and rapport of PM with owner representatives0.780 Training the human resources in the skill demanded by the project0.515 Leadership quality of PM0.505 Project managerÕs authority to takefinancial decision,selecting key team members,etc.0.453 Monitoring and feedback Monitoring and feedback by top management0.7619.284% Timely decision by the owner or his engineer(reluctance or otherwise)0.752 Selection of PM with proven track record at an early stage by top management0.686 Favourable political&economic environment0.672 Monitoring and feedback by client0.576 Coordination between project participants Coordinating ability and rapport of PM with top management0.8518.257% Coordinating ability and rapport of PM with his team members and sub-contractor0.678 Effective monitoring and feedback by PM0.451 Committed project participants Ability to delegate authority to various members of his team by PM0.6398.128% Positive attitude of PM,and project participants0.607 Effective monitoring and feedback by the project team members0.572 Effective monitoring and feedback by PM0.471 Commitment of all parties to the project0.432 Owners competence and favourable climatic condition Favourable climatic condition at the site0.832 6.162% Monitoring and feedback by client0.655 Scope and nature of work well defined in the tender0.580 a Taken with thefirst factor for subsequent discussion.developing and maintaining a short and informal line of communication among project team.These attributes are seen emerged in the second factor(Table5)and hence the name. 7.1.3.Project managerÕs coordinating and leadership skill The third factor shares three common attributes with thefirst factor out offive attributes emerged. Although thefirst two attributes(Table5)predomi-nantly describe the coordinating and leadership skill of Project manager,they cannot be taken as different from thefirst factor which covers the overall aspects of project managerÕs traits or competence.Hence this factor along with thefirst factor can be said to explain the common latent property and together explain 33.43%variance(22.151%from factor1and10.279% from factor3).7.1.4.Monitoring and feedback The attributes under this factor mainly focus on mon-itoring and feedback by the project participants.Thefirst and last attributes under this factor directly mention this whereas second and third attribute under this factor indicate action by a watchful owner and top manage-ment,which is possible only when these participants are monitoring the projects.As can be seen from the sec-tion on literature review(Table1),monitoring and feed-back is given importance by most of the studies for the successful outcome of a project and identified as key fac-tor responsible for success of many projects.This factor explains a variance of9.28%. 7.1.5.Coordination between project participants The high loading attributes here are coordinating ability and rapport of PM with top management,team Details of factor and the attributes Factor loading Variance explained Conflict among project participants Poor human resource management and labour Strike0.77919.951% Mismatch in capabilities of client and architect0.752 Negative attitude of PM,and project participants0.720 Vested interest of client representative in not getting the project completed in time0.694 Project completion date specified but not yet planned by the owner0.639 Conflicts among team members0.617 Conflicts between PM and top management0.595 Conflicts between PM and other outside agency such as owner,sub-contractor or other contractors0.541 Lack of understanding of operating procedure by the PM0.486 Tendency to pass on the blame to others0.470 Reluctance in timely decision by top management0.443 Ignorance&lack of knowledge Ignorance of appropriate planning tools and techniques by PM0.83910.786% Reluctance in timely decision by PM0.746 Lack of understanding of operating procedure by the PM0.650 Conflicts among team members0.402 Presence of poor project specific attributes and non existence of cooperation Inadequate project formulation in the beginning0.7869.551% Conflicts between PM and other outside agency such as owner,sub-contractor or other contractors0.604 Tendency to pass on the blame to others0.581 Conflicts between PM and top management0.35 Holding key decisions in abeyance0.445 Uniqueness of the project activities requiring high technical know-how0.428 Hostile socio economic and climatic condition Hostile political&economic environment0.48.251% Hostile social environment0.591 Harsh climatic condition at the site0.440 Reluctance in timely decision Reluctance in timely decision by top management0.7048.1765% Size and value of the project being largeÀ0.631 Presence of crisis management skill of PMÀ0.630 Aggressive competition at tender stage Aggressive competition at tender stage0.824 6.672% Harsh climatic condition at the siteÀ0.420 Holding key decisions in abeyanceÀ0.540 Short bid preparation time Urgency emphasized by the owner while issuing tender0.783 5.650%members,and subcontractors.Effective monitoring and feedback by PM also makes it in this factor.These attri-butes mainly point toward the interaction or personal rapport with the participants.Often personal rapport with different project participant can save lot of cost. Individual rapport can lead to each other providing helping hand and thereby sometimes reducing the neces-sary paper work or action and paper work,going simul-taneously thereby reducing considerable time and hence costfinally. 7.1.6.Committed project participants The positive attitude as well as monitoring and feed-back by project manager and the participants show the commitment.Project manager also shows his commit-ment by delegating the authority to other members of the team and not sticking with all the powers granted to him by top management.This way PM ensures commitment. 7.1.7.OwnerÕs competence and favourable climatic condition This factor explains the lowest variance(6.16%) among all the factors through two broad aspects:own-erÕs competence and climatic conditions.A competent owner would have his scope of work well outlined and presented to the contractor and he would closely moni-tor his project regarding its progress,budget,quality, and other aspects.Providing favourable climatic condi-tion is beyond the control of owner or contractor until one is given the choice to select his project location. As this factor explains two diverse aspects,the name of this factor has been kept as ownerÕs competence and favourable climatic condition.OwnerÕs competence has been recognised as the most important factor for Design and Build(D&B)Projects[13]. 7.2.Critical failure factors The seven factors generated from the studies are de-scribed below. 7.2.1.Conflict among project participants As can be seen from Table6this factor explains 19.95%of variance,the highest of all factors and this contains eleven attributes with high factor loadings (P0.4).The attributes under this factor mainly explain either the difference of opinion or lack of coherence in some way barring one or two attributes.The top man-agement must devise suitable means to avoid conflict among participants. 7.2.2.Ignorance and lack of knowledge of project manager This factor accounts for10.78%of variances ex-plained.The attributes having high loading in this factor are:ignorance of appropriate planning tools and tech-niques by PM;reluctance in timely decision by PM;lack of understanding of operating procedure by the PM; and conflicts among team members.This factor is in line with one of the established facts in literature and the findings of this study given in previous section.While a competent PM becomes responsible for success of the project,ignorance and lack of knowledge of PM can cause failure as seen from this factor.Contracting organisations are well advised not to compromise on the competence of project manager.The top manage-ment can devise means to supplement the knowledge needs of project participants by providing training at regular intervals. 7.2.3.Presence of poor project specific attributes and non existence of cooperation This factor points to two broad categories of attri-butes.Thefirst category has project specific attributes viz.Inadequate project formulation in the beginning; uniqueness of the project activities requiring high techni-cal know-how;holding key decisions in abeyance and the other category has attributes related to non existence of cooperation among project participants in the form of conflicts and passing blame.Accordingly the name of the factor has been suggested.The factor accounts for 9.55%variance explanation. 7.2.4.Hostile socio economic and climatic condition This factor affects the cost performance adversely in the form of frequent stoppage of work,labour unrest, and reduced productivity.Respondents have narrated many projects like the famous Enron power project(In-dia)and other projects where political views against the project have led either to inflate the schedule/cost man-ifold or has led to shelving of the project itself.Respon-dents also mention the current status of Tehri dam project and Sardar Sarovar Project(India),which have also suffered on account of opposition by a section of people resulting into severe cost and time overrun.These two cases are internationally known for hostile socio economic conditions. 7.2.5.Reluctance in timely decision The name of this factor is evident,as it has been di-rectly taken from the only attribute under this factor that has positive factor loading.No meanings could be assigned to parameters with negative factor loading nor could this factor be clubbed with any other failure factors explained in this section.This is an important and evident factor,which are generally talked by profes-sionals based on their experience. 7.2.6.Aggressive competition at tender stage Although aggressive competition at the tender stage should enhance the chances for improving the costperformance of the project however it is not true in prac-tice.Since most of the times such projects land up in dis-putes arising out of petty things and claims/ counterclaims extend the duration of the project result-ing into large cost overrun.This is why probably respon-dents rate this as failure factor rather than a success factor. 7.2.7.Short bid preparation time The project duration generally includes the time from conception/approval stage till execution and handing over.In order to gain time for execution or unforeseen events,owners or their representatives tend to squeeze the bid preparation time itself.In an attempt to get the job,contractors are unable to force the owners to provide a reasonable time to quote for the project.Ide-ally reasonable time should be allowed for proper site investigation,and collection of relevant details required for estimation purpose,etc.The short bid preparation time leads to a number of errors/omissions on contrac-torÕs part which they try to settle later through claims. This raises disputes andfinally the project lands up with schedule and cost overruns.This factor with one attri-bute alone explains a variance of5.65%. 8.Most critical factor The factor analysis discussed in the previous sections has only grouped the like attributes in various factors depending upon the level of correlation among them. It does not indicate as to which factor is most influential in the success or failure of the projects.Accordingly the next objective had been to identify the most important among these factors.As explained earlier due to non-availability of documented data for study,a need to take up second stage questionnaire was felt.This question-naire was aimed to get responses on the influence of var-ious factors on the actual outcome of the project.Thus using the above success and failure factors as influencing variables,questions were developed to know their actual impact onÀ5,...,0,...,+5(11point scale,withÀ5indi-cating most negative effect and+5indicating most posi-tive effect)on each of the project performance criteria such as schedule,cost,quality,and no-dispute.The respondents are however asked to select only one project of their choice where they have in-depth knowledge of the particular project and base all their responses on that project.This project is named as Choice project of the respondent.The respondents are also asked to rate the actual achievement of project performance in terms of schedule,cost,quality,and no-dispute in the choice project in a scale of1–10where1represents highly failure with minimum score and10represents most successful with maximum score.Since the scope of this paper is restricted only to discussion on cost per-formance of a project that is influenced by various attri-butes,findings on other project performances are not discussed. A total of90responses are received as against300 questionnaires sent to randomly selected professionals from top contracting organisations of the country.The mean score of cost performance is found to be8.011, which indicates that respondents have chosen only those projects that have fared well on cost account.The rea-son respondents are given the choice of self-selection of projects is due to lack of availability of the docu-mented data on performance of Indian construction projects.It is also recognized that there could be bias in the self-selection of the choice project by the respon-dents as many of them have chosen to share their suc-cessful experiences only.Lim and Ling[20]point out the leniency bias in self-selection while Somers and Birn-baum[21]assert that self-selection is generally accurate. Tofind the most important factor among the critical success and failure factors stepwise regression technique has been used with the factors as causal variables and the cost performance as the dependent variable.The regression results are summarized in Table7.The regres-sion analysis results are generally used helps to develop predicting or forecasting models provided the R2value is reasonably high and the model helps in assessing the or-der of importance of each of the criterion variables.In the present case since the R2value is not too high,the relationship obtained from the regression equations are not being used to develop a predicting model but re-stricted to ascertain the most important factor through the b coefficient.It can be seen from the Table7that Ôcoordination between project participantsÕis the most important factor that has maximum influence in success-ful cost performance.The research concludes that although other factors obtained from the study are also important,the major contribution comes from coordi-nation.Similar conclusion has also been drawn by Rad[22]on the case study of construction of a nuclear power plant.It can be seen that with proper coordina-tion among project participants many avenues of cost savings are opened up.Respondents,in the open-ended question of the questionnaire also point out that lack of coordination among participants results in the duplicity of work and resources are also underutilized resulting into wasteful expenditures. While the technical skills and some human skills can be improved by designing the suitable course content at undergraduate and post graduate levels,training to im-prove other skills like proper interaction and coordina-tion may be difficult to impart in the college level when one does not have adequate exposure of project work.Hence such training should be taken up at work-ing level.Having regular meetings among the project participants and developing a rapport among themselves can also improve these skills.With the increasing projectsize and increase in number of project participants this particular factor becomes all the more important. 9.Summary and conclusions Questionnaire survey on an extensive project attri-butes that affect the cost performance of project has re-vealed the important success and failure attributes.The important success attributes are:effective monitoring and feedback by the project manager and project team members;coordinating ability and rapport of PM with top management;positive attitude of PM,and project participants;and Project managerÕs technical capability. The important failure attributes are poor human resource management and labour strike;negative attitude of PM and project participants;inadequate project formulation in the beginning;vested interest of client representative in not getting the project completed in time;and conflicts between PM and top management.There is high agree-ment in the ranking of critical failure attributes by the two groups of respondents viz.contractors and owners. Factor analysis of responses on the project attributes has extracted critical success and failure factors.Project managerÕs competence;top management support;pro-ject managerÕs coordinating and leadership skill;top management and owner involvement in the project; interaction between project participants,monitoring and feedback by project participants;owners compe-tence and favourable climatic condition are the seven critical success factors.Similarly critical failure factors extracted are:conflict among project participants;igno-rance and lack of knowledge;indecisiveness;hostile so-cio economic and climatic condition;reluctance in timely decision;aggressive competition at tender stage; short bid preparation time. Identification of critical success as well as failure attributes and factors by this study also leads one to rea-lise that it is not sufficient to only maximise the results of the critical success factors but it is also necessary to min-imise the negative impact of failure factors. The most important factor among all success and failure factors turns out to beÔcoordination among pro-ject participantsÕwhich is obtained from the results of regression analysis.Skills like proper interaction and coordination need to be taken up through suitable train-ing programmes of project participants.Having regular meetings among the project participants and developing a rapport among themselves can also improve these skills.With the increasing project size and increase in number of project participants this particular factor be-comes all the more important. As can be seen the success factors obtained from the present analyses are consistent with thefindings in the context of developed countries,a summary of which is presented in Table1.Thus the study concludes that the critical success factor remains the same irrespective of geographical boundaries. Table7 Summary of stepwise regression results Unstandardized coefficients Standardized coefficients t a R2 B Standard error b Constant 6.3720.38016.7730.0000.210 Coordination between project participants0.4630.1000.459 4.6160.000 Appendix A.Questionnaire on project attributes Listed below are some of the attributes responsible for advantages/hindrances to project success;please indicate the effects of these attributes on various project success evaluation criteria given alongside the attributes S.No.Project success attributes Effect on project cost 1Size and value of the project being large12345 2Scope and nature of work well defined in the tender12345 3Aggressive competition at tender stage12345 4Urgency emphasized by the owner while issuing tender12345 5Inadequate project formulation in the beginning12345 6Uniqueness of the project activities requiring high technical know-how12345 7Favourable political&economic environment12345 8Hostile political&economic environment12345 9Hostile social environment12345 10Favourable social environment12345 11Harsh climatic condition at the site12345 (continued on next page)Appendix A(continued) S.No.Project success attributes Effect on project cost 12Favourable climatic condition at the site12345 13Project completion date specified but not yet planned by the owner12345 14Monitoring and feedback by client1234 15Timely decision by the owner or his engineer(reluctance or otherwise)12345 12345 16Understanding operational difficulties by the owner engineer thereby taking appropriate decisions 17Top managementÕs enthusiastic support to the project manager(PM)and project 12345 team at site 18Top managementÕs backing up the plans and identify critical activities12345 19Selection of PM with proven track record at an early stage by top management12345 20Delegating authority to project manager by top management12345 21Monitoring and feedback by top management12345 22Reluctance in timely decision by top management12345 23Effective monitoring and feedback by PM12345 24Effective monitoring and feedback by the project team members12345 25Lack of understanding of operating procedure by the PM12345 26Ignorance of appropriate planning tools and techniques by PM12345 27Reluctance in timely decision by PM12345 28Ability to delegate authority to various members of his team by PM12345 29Coordinating ability and rapport of PM with his team members and sub-contractor12345 30Coordinating ability and rapport of PM with top management12345 31Coordinating ability and rapport of PM with owner representatives12345 32Coordinating ability and rapport of PM with other contractors at site12345 33Leadership quality of PM12345 12345 34Project managerÕs authority to takefinancial decision,selecting key team members, etc. 35Project managerÕs technical capability12345 36Construction control meetings12345 37Regular budget update12345 38Commitment of all parties to the project12345 39Understanding of responsibilities by various project participants12345 40Authority to take day to day decisions by the PMÕs team at site12345 41Conflicts among team members12345 42Conflicts between PM and top management12345 12345 43Conflicts between PM and other outside agency such as owner,sub-contractor or other contractors 44Tendency to pass on the blame to others12345 12345 45Availability of resources(funds,machinery,material,etc.)as planned throughout the project duration 46Developing and maintaining a short and informal line of communication among 12345 project team 47Poor human resource management and labour strike12345 48Presence of crisis management skill of PM12345 49Vested interest of client representative in not getting the project completed in time12345 50Training the human resources in the skill demanded by the project12345 51Mismatch in capabilities of client and architect12345 52The capability of project participants to market the end product to the intended 12345 users 53Positive attitude of PM,and project participants12345 54Negative attitude of PM,and project participants12345 55Holding key decisions in abeyance12345 1,Adversely affect;2,significantly affect;3,marginally affect;4,no effect;5,helps in saving. 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