A conceptual framework for project managers to improve projects performance

The Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) sector often encounters difficulties in attaining satisfactory project performance. The secondary data in this research (literature review) clearly shows that an inability to pre-identify problems leads to projects becoming ‘risky'. This can be due to a lack of meeting certain project targets, i.e. , a lack of predicting ‘accurate' project time and costs, a failure to raise the project’s quality issues and failures in predicting a project’s return on investment. In addition, it has been shown that a major lack of anticipating problems within a construction project can occur because of a lack of providing accurate data/information and a lack of team collaboration between project stakeholders. Much research has been conducted in order to anticipate construction project problems and to attempt to offer technological solutions, including information maturity models. However, in spite of all this, research projects still run into risks. Therefore, this thesis aims to investigate a conceptual framework to support construction project managers in order to enhance project performance. This conceptual framework brings together three main entities: Integrated Collaborative Technologies, Team Collaboration and Proactive Behaviour. These three notable entities are used to support project managers' strategies in order to successfully fulfil the project. In order for this to be achieved the researcher has met the following objectives: an investigation as to how proactive behaviour impacts on the progress of construction projects, an investigation into how team collaboration relates to proactive behaviour and an investigation into how team collaboration and integrated collaborative technologies can support proactive behaviour. The research design includes primary mixed data analysis and secondary data analysis from the literature review. In order to gather data, semi-structured interviews and a questionnaire have been undertaken by the researcher. The proposed conceptual framework was tested by asking professional experts whether the proposed framework was applicable within a construction project environment. The research shows that there is a relationship between integrated collaborative technologies and team collaboration, and team collaboration and proactive behaviour, and hence these factors impact on project performance. Moreover it has been proved that, in order to achieve a successful outcome, a project requires stakeholders to learn how to collaborate with the support of integrated collaborative technologies. Throughout this ‘iterative process' construction project managers can enhance their proactive behaviour at an individual level and thus can enhance their ability to pre-identify construction related problems. Arguably, this behavioural change will impact positively on project performance indicators.