1,551 research outputs found
Opportunity Management in Complex Infrastructure Projects: An Attempt at Exploiting Complexity
No full textOne of the reasons for the failure of large infrastructure projects is the increasing complexity of such projects. Complexity is considered a source of risks. These risks can be negative, called threats, or positive, called opportunities. The current risk management process implemented in practice mainly deals with threats, and opportunities are almost not considered. This research aims to study how individuals involved in complex infrastructure projects can better set the scene for opportunity management and capitalize on the opportunities that complexities offer. First, a literature study was conducted to define the relevant concepts such as project complexity and opportunity management. Next, to understand the current approach of identifying opportunities in practice, interviews with practitioners in the field of infrastructure were conducted. After that, the aim was to study the possibility of exploiting complexities. This was achieved by organizing a workshop session, where four Project Managers collaborated to identify opportunities, in four infrastructure projects, that result from the technical (T), organizational (O) and external (E) complexity elements of the TOE framework developed by Bosch-Rekveldt et al. (2011). As a result, a technique that aims particularly at identifying the opportunities that emerge from the complexities was developed: the Complexity-Driven Opportunity Identification Technique (CDOIT). Finally, this technique was integrated in a roadmap that aims for the effective implementation of opportunity management in complex infrastructure projects. This study suggests having a common understanding among the project team of the concept of opportunity as a positive risk and how it is linked to the project objectives. These objectives should be clearly stated from the beginning of the project. Also, if the team is determined to identify and manage opportunities, and even more, the opportunities that result from the complexity of the project, this should be clear from the start and included in the risk management plan (RMP). Another important factor is to determine the people who should be involved in identifying opportunities. Furthermore, the techniques that can facilitate the identification of opportunities and how these will be assessed, handled and monitored should be determined. Also, individuals looking for opportunities should be equipped with the right positive mindset. This will help in switching from a threat-focused mindset to a mindset that focuses on the positive side of risk. This study also proposed five possibilities into how complexities can be exploited. This can be done using internal strengths, taking advantage of external weaknesses combined with internal strengths, aiming to turn internal weaknesses to strengths, through a better use of available resources, and by increasing the scope of the project
Towards resilient performance for construction projects: The PRL resilience framework
No full textThe construction sector owns a bad reputation in terms of performing on time and within budget. The inherent characteristics of large construction projects of complexity and uncertainty play an essential role in such deviations. While current project management and risk management approaches cannot fully predict, prevent, and enable the successful conquering of disruptions, the resilience-based project management approach seems like a promising solution. However, the resilience concept is still new in the construction industry and few literature works tackled this area with low consensus. Whereas in practice, the concept is still not explicitly used. It is not clear yet what constitutes a resilient construction project and what elements contribute towards resilience. Therefore, this research aims to understand the resilience concept at the level of a construction project, uncover the elements contributing to building resilience and introduce these in one solid framework that aids in building, evaluating and enhancing resilience in construction projects.Based on an inductive approach this research resulted in a framework, the PRL resilience framework for construction projects, based on theory and practice. To build the framework, related literature work was reviewed, and 16 interviews with professionals experienced in complex construction projects (infrastructure projects) were interviewed. For evaluation, the framework for three study cases and was found acceptable to satisfactory. The framework consists of 87 elements assigned into three dimensions (proactiveness, reactive capacities, and learning), and 15 related project management areas: Client management, stakeholder management, monitoring and control, partners, mother organization, risk management, project manager, project team, schedule management, change management, contract management, project management approach, information management, tender management and design management. The resilience of a construction project can be defined then as the ability of a construction project to overcome disruptive events (preserve its well-functioning and ability to perform to achieve expected targets) fast and without bypassing the current most valuable project objectives thresholds, enabled by proactiveness (Awareness, anticipation, alertness), reactive capacities (absorptive, adaptive, recovery), and learning.Main future research work related to the resilience of construction projects is suggested as follows: (1) further research towards identifying the weights of each resilience element, (2) link project complexity elements (suggested using TOE framework by Bosch-Rekveldt et al. (2011)), to be used to design and tailor resilience elements from the PRL framework based on project-specific complexity scan, (3) Applying the PRL framework to different types of projects, (4) Investigating the concept of resilience on portfolio level and program levels.Civil Engineering | Construction Management and Engineerin
Karisma site development
No full textCivil Engineering and GeosciencesHydraulic EngineeringConstruction Management and EngineeringMP-18
The Sustainable Footprint Methodology: Including sustainability in the project management of the Bergermeer Gas Storage project
No full textManagement of TechnologyTechnology, Strategy and EntrepreneurshipTechnology, Policy and Managemen
Managing project complexity: A study into adapting early project phases to improve project performance in large engineering projects
No full textEngineering projects become increasingly more complex and project complexity is assumed to be one of the causes for projects being delivered late and over budget. However, what this project complexity actually comprised of was unclear. To improve the overall project performance, this study focuses on identifying the potential causes of complexity in projects. Moreover, it is investigated how the early project phase could be adapted to the complexity of the project. The research is performed with companies of the NAP network, which brings together companies from the entire value chain in the Dutch process industry. The study is structured in four phases and included exploratory case studies, a quantitative survey, explanatory case studies and an evaluative survey. By combining qualitative and quantitative work, this study is an example of successfully applying a mixed methods approach in project management research. The main results of this study are the TOE (Technical, Organizational, External) framework to grasp project complexity and recommendations on managing project complexity in the early project phase. To improve project performance the role of integrated teams (joint owner / contractor teams) as well as thorough application of risk management is shown to be crucial.TSETechnology, Policy and Managemen
Fit-for-purpose project management: An exploratory research into the practice of project management for infrastructure at three Dutch waterboards
No full textThe construction of infrastructure in the Netherlands is initiated by the Dutch government and performed in the form of projects. Yearly about €8 billion is spent on infrastructure and in the construction sector 50% of the projects are initiated by public clients. Project management methodologies are the working methods of these public clients. Literature until now only focussed on whether or not adjustments to PM methodologies (customization of methodologies to a single project) are needed or not.This research aims to explore the fit-for-purpose use of these PM methodologies, to investigate on the level of projects what adjustment occur, what the underlying reasons are and what the contribution to project success is. The main research question is: “How do the fit-for-purpose adjustments to the project management methodologies used by the public clients in the Netherlands contribute to project success of infrastructure projects?” The research methodology is qualitative, with 13 interviews in a practical orientation (national-, regional-, local governments and waterboards), followed by 6 case studies (13 interviews with project managers and internal clients) at 3 different waterboards (PMC, PRINCE2 and an in-house PM methodology) and the findings were evaluated by 7 experts in the expert panel interviews. Adjustments to PM methodologies occur in two ways: organisation-specific adjustments (between official theory and the organisation) and project-specific adjustments (between the organisation and the project). Organisation-specific adjustments were made for all waterboards in this research and in total 16 project-specific adjustments were found. These adjustments range from e.g. additional financial mandate to shared risk registers and skipping phases or documentation. Adjustments can be specified to be deviations or additions, roughly occurring fifty-fifty.The overall majority of these adjustments was said to contribute to project success positively. Project success is in general perceived by the interviewed project managers as mostly a focus on time and budget and from the underlying reasons time was the most prominent aspect.Recommendations for future research include a closer look at the relation between the adjustments and project success, a framework for the measurement of the impact of adjustments and quantitative research into which methodologies need more adjustments.Keywords: Fit-for-purpose, project management, PM methodologies, adjustments, project success, infrastructure, Dutch public clients.<br/
Towards Information Integrated Design Management: A study on the effects of inter-disciplinary information dependency on design in construction design projects
No full textThis M.Sc. thesis is related to the use of Design Structure Matrix (DSM), a design process modeling technique, to model, analyze and improve design processes in Oil and Gas Construction Projects. DSM was used to model the design process of an engineering design section at an Oil and Gas Engineering Company using the information dependencies in the design process. The key effects of the information dependencies that were studied in this thesis include rework due to iterations, change propagation in the design process and need of design team collaboration. Further, the current design process was improved in terms of design schedule by proposing a new design process with reduced rework risk. Finally, ecommendations have been provided to improve the design process on the three aspects related to information dependencies in design process as mentioned above
Flood Safety Durban
No full textDurban is the biggest city of the KwaZulu-Natal province located at the East coast of South-Africa. In South Africa nation wide millions of Rands of damage occur along with tens of casualties as a result of urban flooding. These floods are usually the result of heavy rainfall. In Durban other factors that may contribute to floods are blockage or siltation of the drainage system. The blockage of the rainage system is a result of bad waste management. The continuously rising sea level in combination with a blocked urban drainage system could pose a serious threat. This results in the following main goal of this project: obtain insight in the effects of combined sea storm and high rain/river events on stakeholders and existing transport systems, for regular and more severe events. The scope of the project is the area of Durban from the port up until the Umgeni Business park and from the coast until the hill ridge. This report contains four parts. Part I: Analysis, Part II: Elaboration on Modelling Approach, Part III: Acquiring Results and Part IV: Solutions. In the first part are analysed: stakeholders, the transport network, the storm water network and hydraulic and hydrological aspects. In the stakeholder analysis several stakeholders are identified that either have a significant interest, or significant power to influence any decisions that will have to be made regarding floods. From the traffic analysis the most important roads and bottlenecks were identified. The only interesting network is the road network, since other infrastructure is not used by many people. The stormwater network analysis showed that in several locations such as the Central Business District (CBD) the tide penetrates far into the network and several outfalls are completely underwater during spring tide. This shows the possible vulnerability of the network to a high water level from the sea. The analysis also showed that external factors such as blockage of the manholes by waste could also affect the functionality of the system. The hydraulic & hydrological parameters that were analysed were rainfall and river discharge from the land side and the water level from the sea side. In the second part different maps are created which together reveal the most critical areas with respect to flooding. The most critical areas with respect to stakeholders and the traffic network were identified and mapped. Also the drainage model PCSWMM, which has been used to model the urban drainage system of the study area has been described. In the third part the stakeholder and transport map are combined with a flood map resulting from PCSWMM. The flood scenarios, which are used as input for PCSWMM are based on the likeliness of the combination of occurrence of the sea and land based hydraulic parameters. By the combination of these maps, the consequences of the floods have been evaluated. Because of inaccuracies in the flood map for some regions the focus was laid upon the Central Business District. The consequences of the floods are divided in capital, social and economic costs. Several main roads could get flooded in the CBD which will require the traffic to use other main roads. The exit- and entry ramps of these other roads however are not designed for such an increase in intensity and therefore congestion will arise at these locations. This will cause severe travel time delay and will result in economic costs. With respect to stakeholders, property owners and small businesses will be most affected in some parts whereas in other parts of the area insurance companies will be most affected because of the houses of middle or upper class residents and also business who are all insured for damages caused by floods. The last part contains four proposed solution strategies which can be used as a starting point in treating floods. Floods can be seen as a risk which consists of the combination of probability and consequences. Therefore four general risk treating strategies are used: Accept, Avoid, Mitigate and Transfer. Four global solutions to deal with floods are constructed each based on these different strategy. The four strategies were evaluated using a Multi Criteria analysis. This showed that all strategies are better than the 0-hypothesis (Accept) but none of the strategies proved to be the most suitable. Finally some recommendations are given for further research and to improve the PCSWMM model.Civil Engineering and GeosciencesMultidisciplinary Project CIE4061-0
How can Early Warning Signs contribute to the predictability of potential cost overruns in public infrastructure road works under integrated contracts, so that costs can be reduced for the contractor?
No full textCivil Engineering and GeosciencesStructural Engineerin
Extending the View on Project Performance
No full textThe main aim of this study is to gain insights into project management professionals’ perception of how project success can be achieved. The Q-methodology was followed in this research. Based on an extensive literature review and validation through expert judgment, a framework consisting of 33 factors increasing the likelihood of success was developed. A total of 34 practitioners in three different sectors (real estate, urban development, and infrastructure) in the Netherlands were asked to rank the statements contributing to the success of their projects. Four different perspectives of how project success can be achieved were distinguished in this study: “seeking the best match”, “being adaptive and open”, “keeping the team focused”, and “preparing for opportunities”. The perception of different practitioners of how success can be obtained may stem from factors of project context rather than sector and complexity. This highlights further research opportunities in taking a contingent approach when investigating project performance. The study helps to grasp the subjectivity of practitioners’ viewpoints regarding the potential ways to enhance project performance by understanding the similarity and differences of these viewpoints.Integral Design & Managemen
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