Construction manager's influence on project success

Construction managers aim to deliver successful construction projects; however it is unclear how they perceive construction project success and how they influence that success. Focusing on the construction phase of the project, a Systems Conceptual Framework is induced from the literature review. In-depth interviews undertaken by 10 construction managers, whose experience accounts for over 130 construction projects, provide data to derive categories which populate the Systems Conceptual Framework initially developed. By adopting an unstructured approach to the data collection, a holistic view of how construction managers impact the success of construction projects is acquired. The construction managers' influence on success is identified through the skills, competencies and characteristics which enable success of the construction phase (enablers). This inductive-deductive methodological approach allows the identification of categories and relations between them which, along with the Systems Conceptual Framework, form the Empirical Model. A Pareto analysis was carried out in order to determine the relative relevance categories have against each others. Overall, 56 relations were identified between the 37 categories derived from the data analysis. The results of the research show that the influence of construction managers on project success is determined by twenty enablers. According to the Pareto analysis, 6 enablers were most relevant; they are separated into two interrelated sets: Communication, Leadership and People Management, and Ability to Pull Back, Experience and Technical Skill. This suggests that construction managers consider mastering 'hard' and 'soft' aspects of the job are both equally relevant to the success of the project. The high interconnectivity between the categories is what allows the Empirical Model to be developed; making it the most important finding of this research. Evidence indicates that construction managers work with both a subjective (qualitative) and an objective (quantitative) concept of success. The quantitative concept of success can have between two and four success factors, which are prioritised according to the needs of the client; there is always one critical success factors that leads the project. The subjective concept of success incorporates aspects of the end user and personal satisfaction, and specific characteristics of the project. The results also show that the outcomes of construction projects can be three: success, failure, and a third outcome which is neither, an outcome between success and failure. Participants have identified this last outcome as being the most frequent.