Rwelamila, P D and Asalan, R (2010) Understanding of project management good practices by construction project managers: The case of ABCD. In: Egbu, C (ed.) Proceedings of 26th Annual ARCOM Conference, 6-8 September 2010, Leeds, UK.
Abstract
Most people become construction project managers (CPM) by accident. The usual path to the job is through expertise in a technical speciality as an engineer, quantity surveyor, architect or any other related speciality. In short, those with technical skill are told to run projects because they have technical knowledge about the projects. The Tthe technical part of a construction project is often the smallest and easiest part. Technical success does not necessarily lead to project success; it is necessary but not sufficient. In order to manage projects successfully one of the requirements for a project manager (PM) is to have sufficient knowledge base in construction project management, and coupled with practical experience, the PM will have sufficient understanding of PM good practices. This paper reports on a South African research project which was conducted to evaluate CPM understanding of project management good practices. One major public sector organization employing more than 800 construction project managers was selected as a case study. In order to maintain the organization’s anonymity it is referred to in this paper as ABCD. From intensive literature review, universally accepted project management good practices were identified. These were used to evaluate the extent to which ABCD project managers understand project management good practices through a self administered questionnaire. The research results found that even though there are several areas of project management good practices in which ABCD project managers were found to have high levels of understanding, there were also significant areas of PM good practices which were not well understood. These findings have implications for CPM practices in South Africa and beyond. Recommendations are made to address the status quo in order to strengthen PM practices.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | project manager; good practice; South Africa |
| Index terms: | South Africa, project management, construction project, architect, questionnaire, construction project management, engineer, literature review, public sector organization, good practice, manager, quantity surveying, knowledge base, technical skill, project success, project manager, case study |
| Subjects: | information systems, administrative law, performance measurement, project management theory and practice, professional development, Geography, production management, data analysis and analytics, profession, data collection methods, practitioner |
| Topics: | Digital Applications, Legal Issues, Quality Management, Information Management, Research Practice, Geographical Context, Project Management, Roles and Professions |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCEA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here