Managing stakeholders' participation to improve project scope definition completeness and enhance project outcome

The level of project scope definition completeness can help decision-makers determine whether or not to proceed with a project. Developing of a project can affect positively or negatively a variety of interests. Project definition boundaries may be redefined or subjected to differing expectations and interpretation by stakeholders. The research develops a procedure that can help decision-makers measure the level of project scope definition completeness with adequate consideration for stakeholders' inputs at pre-project planning stage, thereby facilitating better project outcome. The research seeks to answer the main research question: How can the level of project scope definition completeness be evaluated to account for differences in stakeholders' concerns to facilitate a better project outcome in public building projects? The developed procedure should help project management teams to identify systematically and prioritise the involvement of each stakeholder when measuring the level of each project scope definition element for completeness. Further, the procedure should ensure that stakeholders' requirements and concerns are reflected properly in the project scope definition package at the pre-project planning stage of building projects. The study is divided into three main phases and each phase includes three steps. Data was collected using semi-structured questionnaire via face-to-face interviews with 16 respondents in phase one, 46 respondents in phase two and 38 respondents in phase three. In phase one of the study, data was analysed using the combination of Structural Self-Interaction Matrix (SSIM) to determine 882 contextual relationships and Analytical Network Process (ANP) to determine the level of significance of each element in terms of contribution to the overall project scope definition document completeness through 340 pair-wise comparisons. The second phase employed the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique to determine the importance weights and the contribution required from each single stakeholder to achieve definition completeness for each scope element through 1003 pair-wise comparisons. Pareto analysis was used to classify the elements into significant few that mostly contribute to project scope definition completeness in the first phase and to classify the stakeholders into significant few that mostly contribute to the completeness of each project scope definition category in the second phase. In the third phase of the study, the combination of phase one and two were explained and validated through two case studies. The proposed procedure is developed within the context of public building projects in the Saudi Arabian construction industry. Phase one of the study shows that 42 elements must be identified to achieve project scope definition document completeness in public building projects in Saudi Arabia. These elements contribute differently to the completeness of the document; however, the results from a Pareto analysis on the importance weights of the project scope definition elements shows that even though the elements can be prioritised by their contribution to the completeness of the project scope definition, there is no discernible difference between them. All 42 elements are important for ensuring the completeness of the project scope definition document. Subsequently, phase two identifies 15 stakeholder categories that should ideally be involved in the process of preparing project scope definition documents for public building projects in Saudi Arabia. Further, phase two identifies the stakeholder input importance weights to the completeness of each scope element. The outcome from the procedure is an evaluation tool to measure the level of project scope definition completeness. The evaluation tool includes 15 evaluation sheets, one for each stakeholder category. Stakeholders involved in the pre-project planning stage should use the relevant sheet for their stakeholder's category. These evaluation sheets allow each stakeholder to quantify the level of scope definition completen ss for each element. Each evaluation sheet is designed for one specific stakeholder category and it covers the elements in which that stakeholder should be involved. The decision-maker can then score the level of scope definition completeness for the whole project by summing the average scores provided for each stakeholder category. This can indicate which scope definition element is weak and which stakeholders are dissatisfied. The decision-maker can then take actions through the involvement of the stakeholders, whether to modify, improve or proceed with the project scope definition. The evaluation tool developed (15 evaluation sheets) for measuring the level of project scope definition completeness has been explained and validated in two case studies in phase three. The analysis of measuring the level of project scope definition completeness was conducted for two scenarios. The results reveal a difference in the level of project scope definition element completeness when using the developed tool. Applying the Wilcoxon test, this difference is found to be statistically significant. This indicates that using the developed tool provides a more accurate measurement of the level of project scope definition completeness, which can be attributed to the fact that the result reflects all stakeholders' input, organised by importance to each element. From this, it is apparent that that stakeholders' satisfaction level with project scope definition completeness is directly proportional to the level of procedural justice in the decision-making process. This research provides construction project managers with a procedure to improve the practice of involving the stakeholders to measure the construction project scope definition completeness. Specifically, the tool resulted from the procedure can help project management team measure the level of project scope definition completeness with adequate consideration of stakeholders' inputs. It can help in achieving a better project definition that involves stakeholders' inputs. In order to satisfy as many stakeholders concerns as possible, or at least minimise the extent to which each single stakeholder is less or more involved, all stakeholders' opinions are reflected in the definition in accordance with their input importance to the project. The research provided the project managers and investors with a guide to find the best stakeholder involvement that helps to optimise the project definitions. It forms a baseline for action intended to improve decision-making process in the early stages of the construction project life cycle.