The Influence of Project Ambiguity and Help Seeking on Project Performance in Knowledge Process Outsourcing Project Teams

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Enno Siemsen ◽  
Dishan Kamdar ◽  
Mani Subramani ◽  
Min Li

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Amirali Shalwani ◽  
Brian Lines

PurposeThe Project Management Body of Knowledge recommends the use of issue logs as a best practice to minimize the potential project cost and schedule growth. Although the broader topic of project control has been widely studied in the construction literature, the specific application of issue logs has remained relatively understudied. This study aims to analyze the extent and consistency with which construction teams utilize issue logs and the corresponding project performance outcomes.Design/methodology/approachA dataset of 5,635 individual issues was gathered from the final issue logs of 881 small building projects delivered via the design–bid–build method. Differences between groups were determined using the Kruskal–Wallis H test with post hoc testing via the Mann–Whitney U test with pairwise comparison.FindingsThe results showed that, on average, project teams who used issue logs to a greater extent achieved a 3.1 to 4.3% reduction in cost growth and a 5.3 to 12.3% reduction in schedule growth. This result shows that issue logs can be used to improve construction project performance in the areas of cost and schedule.Originality/valueThis result provides a contribution to practitioners, wherein project teams should be encouraged to establish their issue management practices early in the project schedule to encourage greater issue log usage for the remainder of the project.



Globally, 80% of projects fail to meet either schedule or budget, and about 50% of such failures are due to human factors. Conflict is inevitable between people working in crossfunctional project teams; further, task-oriented conflict is constructive and is needed to make progress. However, personoriented or Relationship Conflict can be destructive - arising from differences in beliefs, values, attitudes and communication styles. Relationship Conflict is found to cause counterproductive work behaviour and affect team cooperation, creativity, cohesion, learning, even mood & sleep, leading to schedule delays and budget increases, accounting for up to 27% of the variation in project performance. Several antecedent factors are identified, including team diversity, personality and leadership, with a focus on aspects of behaviour and processes which may be more amenable to control. Among the resolution approaches, the Project Management Institute’s style-based proposals are studied, along with later developments which emphasise communication, mediation and negotiation of interests, rather than rights or power. Focussing on behaviour, both destructive and constructive, and the “hot buttons” to control, has been found to provide helpful tools to grow conflict resolution behaviours & skills, with the necessary organisational commitment. Actual studies of Relationship Conflict behaviour in project teams per se and its impact on performance are limited; particularly in the context of Indian infrastructure projects. A survey is envisaged to assess the current practices and improvement possibilities. The basis and method for conducting such a detailed study are described, with the objective of better management of the phenomenon, enhancing teamwork and improving project performances.



Author(s):  
Ariadna Bednarz ◽  
Marta Borkowska-Bierć ◽  
Marek Matejun

The goal of this study was to identify and assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on project management practices in healthcare organizations, taking into account, in particular, risk analysis, project performance, organization of the work of project teams, and tendencies in future developments in project management. In order to achieve this goal, a study was conducted on 20 project managers in selected healthcare organizations in Poland. The results indicate that a systematically conducted risk analysis as part of the implemented projects enabled rapid and effective reactions during the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has also significantly altered the organization of the work of project teams and, in the opinion of the research subjects, this will significantly impact future solutions for project management in healthcare organizations. The obtained results form a basis for the increase in professionalization in project management in healthcare organizations.



2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 408-423 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guangdong Wu ◽  
Xianbo Zhao ◽  
Jian Zuo ◽  
George Zillante

Purpose The purpose of this paper is fourfold: first, to investigate the effect of team diversity on different types of conflicts; second, to determine if team diversity is significantly correlated with project performance; third, to investigate the mediating effect of project conflicts on the relationship between team diversity and project performance and fourth, to examine the relationship between different types of conflicts and project performance in construction projects. Design/methodology/approach A theoretical model was developed and a questionnaire survey was conducted with 246 professionals. The structural equation modeling technique was applied to analyze the data. Findings The results showed that: team diversity was positively associated with project performance; the introduction of conflicts significantly weakened the effect of diversity on performance; conflicts have both constructive and destructive effects on project performance; and team diversity affected project performance through the mediating effects of task conflict and relationship conflict, thus adding both positive and negative effects on performance. Research limitations/implications There are other factors which may affect conflicts and project performance such as communication, trust and contract. Future research could be conducted to determine the role of these variables in determining the effects of team diversity on performance. Practical implications It is necessary to reduce the relationship conflict whereas maintaining a “healthy” level of task conflict. In light of this, the conclusions of this study highlight practical implications as follows: project teams should attach importance to diverse partner selection and select cooperative partners whose value orientations are similar; when implementing a construction project, the structure of diverse project teams should keep relatively stable, avoiding too many teams entering or exiting the project in a short period; project teams should make greater efforts to deal with destructive conflicts via relational governance such as trust and communication. Originality/value This study contributes to the literature in three areas. First, this study investigated the dynamic mechanism between team diversity, conflicts and performance in construction projects. Second, this study contributes to the body of knowledge on validating the mediating effects of conflicts on the relationship between team diversity and performance. Third, this study validated the positive and negative effects of team diversity on performance with different types of conflicts as mediation variables in construction projects.



2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 17-32
Author(s):  
Petros Kritikos ◽  
Vasso Papadimitriou ◽  
Georgios N. Aretoulis

Project designer (PD) personality defines the way PDs cooperate with the project team, make decisions, and influence the project performance. The current research focused on identifying attributes associated with successful PDs as considered by male and female project engineers. In this context, a five-year questionnaire survey collected 423 responses from Greek engineers. The survey recorded data regarding the respondents and the scores assigned to the required PDs attributes. The methodological approach included an SPSS database, followed by descriptive statistics analysis, independent sample t-test, and correlation analysis. It became obvious that gender influences the assessment and selection of desired PD personality characteristics. Female engineers tend to assign the highest Likert scale-based scores, whereas male respondents tend to assign lower scores. The most highly ranked abilities included “responsibility,” “reliability,” and “obedience to rules.” The findings facilitate the implementation of multi-criteria decision-making tools for efficient project teams.



Author(s):  
Hugo Fernando Castro Silva ◽  
Gonzalo Andres Rodríguez Cañas ◽  
Maricela I. Montes-Guerra

The complexity of projects of international cooperation (IC) and especially the characteristics which are similar to those of social, international projects in the public sector, and the amount and diversity of the interested parts, makes it necessary to implement strategies when handling conflicts in order to maintain the project according to the established plan and get benefits based on its objectives. This empirical cross-cutting research has as main objective to identify the conflict management process in project teams of international cooperation in Colombia and determine the great influence observed in the style of handling the conflict on the performance of the project. The results showed that the cooperative and collaborative styles are significantly and positively related to the project performance whereas competitive and evasive styles affect significantly and negatively the performance of the project of international cooperation in Colombia.



2011 ◽  
Vol 311-313 ◽  
pp. 2239-2244
Author(s):  
A. S. Chang ◽  
C. H. Lee ◽  
Wen Hao Leu

Manufacturing process is more assisted by improvement projects to improve efficiency or decrease cost. These project teams usually cross different departments so engineers need to know coordination needs while executing such projects. This study examined twelve manufacturing process improvement projects to analyze coordination needs and their relationships with project performance. The results indicate that the project’s uncertainty is generally higher than equivocality. But it is equivocality that has a correlation with performance. This finding means that adequate adoption of coordination methods to decrease equivocality will have impact on project performance. While comparing the projects with higher equivocality, the major difference is resulted from environment quality and personnel differences.



2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andre Feliks Setiawan ◽  
Seng Hansen ◽  
Antonius Fujiono

Abstract Effective communication is necessary for the success of construction project performance. Due to its nature, effective communication is required to coordinate all parties involved in construction projects such as owners, project managers, engineers, subcontractors, etc. Few previous studies have addressed the issues of construction project communication, particularly in the communication planning stage. This paper aimed to investigate how far the communication planning has been effectively implemented in several construction projects in Jakarta and measure how big the influence to project performance. It adopts a quantitative method by distributing questionnaire surveys to contractors and consultants in Jakarta. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse the data which presents that communication planning has been implemented by 78.02 % of the responses and significantly impact the project performances. This paper offers useful implications for practitioners on how construction project teams (from contractors and consultants) should carefully manage the communication process particularly during its planning stage.



2012 ◽  
Vol 43 (6) ◽  
pp. 111-111
Author(s):  
Kenneth H. Rose ◽  
Gitanjali Ponnappa


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