Commitment, coordination, competence and the iron triangle

One of the functions of construction project management is to ensure success of the construction project. However achieving success in a construction project is not a small task. Moreover, measurement of performance of a construction project itself is considered to be a debatable issue as there are no universally accepted criteria for it. Traditionally schedule, cost and quality compliances commonly referred to as ‘iron triangle’ have been accepted as the most widely used criteria to measure performance. Further assuming that the project success is repeatable, researches have indicated certain attributes/factors which when present or absent in a project are likely to make the project successful. In the present study, 55 project performance attributes are identified and a two-stage questionnaire survey is conducted. While 11 success and nine failure factors are identified from the analysis of the first stage questionnaire responses, the second stage questionnaire survey has helped in evaluation of the extent of criticality of these factors with respect to a given performance rating of the project. It is found that extent of contribution of various success or failure factors varies with current level performance ratings of the project. The crux of the findings of this study has been the emergence of commitment, coordination, and competence as the key factors for achievement of schedule, cost, and quality objectives respectively. The results may be of a great help to construction professionals and researchers since it helps to identify value adding factors, fewer in number and allow them to focus on these select factors rather than attending to numerous factors that do not yield any commensurate returns.