Derek H.T. Walker

Visualising and mapping stakeholder influence

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to offer insights into a tool that one of the authors has developed to help map, and thus visualise, stakeholder power and influence within the performing organisation.Design/methodology/approach – The concept described in this paper has been tested at several large international gatherings to well over 200 active professional project managers. The feedback to date has been very positive. This positive feedback led to testing of these ideas through research being conducted during 2004/2005 by one of the authors who is a candidate for the doctor of project management (DPM) at RMIT.Findings – The research is centred around this tool, the stakeholder circle, as a means to provide a useful and effective way to visualise stakeholder power and influence that may have pivotal impact on a projects success or failure. The stakeholder‐circle tool is developed for each project through a methodology that identifies and prioritises key project stakeholders and then develops an e...

An investigation into construction time performance

A systematic method for measuring construction time performance has been developed. This enables comparisons between individual project performances and best practice worldwide. Four factors affect construction time performance: construction management effectiveness, the sophistication of the client and the clients representative in terms of creating and maintaining positive project team relationships with the construction management and design team, design team effectiveness in communicating with construction management and clients representative teams, and a small number of factors describing project scope and complexity. This research has indicated that construction management team performance plays a pivotal role in determining construction time performance. It also reveals an important relationship between sound clients representative management effectiveness and good construction time performance. Detailed findings provide useful performance indicators that may be used to assist in defining bench...

Project relationship management and the Stakeholder Circle

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to summarise a successfully completed doctoral thesis. The main purpose of the paper is to provide a summary that indicates the scope of, and main issues raised by, the thesis so that readers that are undertaking research in this area may be aware of current cutting edge research that could be relevant to them. A second key aim of the paper is to place this in context with doctoral study and further research that could take place to extend knowledge in this area.Design/methodology/approach – Research reported in this paper was based upon action learning from a series of case studies where a project management tool for managing stakeholder relationships was tested and refined.Findings – The tool is useful in helping the project delivery team identify major influencing stakeholders and visualise their potential impact. This tool then helped the studied project delivery teams to develop stakeholder engagement strategies. While it was initially tested as a planning tool to b...

Project alliancing vs project partnering: a case study of the Australian National Museum Project

Significant differences between project partnering and project alliancing occur in the selection process, management structure of the organisations undertaking the project and nature of risk and reward incentives. This paper helps clarify the nature of project alliancing and how alliance member organisations were selected for this case study. A core issue that differentiates between the two approaches is that in partnering, partners may reap rewards at the expense of other partners. In alliancing each alliance member places their profit margin and reward structure “at risk”. Thus in alliancing, the entire alliance entity either benefits together or not all. This fundamentally changes the motivation and dynamics of the relationship between alliance members.

Understanding the role of "vision" in project success

Rigorous applications of project management methodologies are responsible, though only partially, for project success. We argue, however, that a significant driver of project management success is effective and intelligent leadership communicated through an inspiring vision of what the project is meant to achieve and how it can make a significant positive impact. An information technology case study project is presented to illustrate how project vision provided and maintained commitment to a complex project that was judged successful when compared to similar projects despite the difficulties described. This success was substantially attributed to the project leadership groups use of a vision.

Extending the “knowledge advantage”: creating learning chains

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a synergy between the approaches of knowledge management in a learning organisation and supply chain management so that learning chains can be created in order to unleash innovation and creativity by managing knowledge in supply chains.Design/methodology/approach – Through extensive literature review, commonalities between knowledge management and supply chain management were elicited. Knowledge Advantage framework, which was developed as a part of CRC for Construction Innovation Australia, research project “Delivering improved knowledge management and ICT diffusion in Australian construction industry”, has been proposed to extend across the supply chain in order to develop learning chains.Findings – The paper provides a conceptual grounding for future research in the area of knowledge management and supply chain management and suggests that, as unit of competition changes from organisation vs organisation to chain vs chain under supply chain management, l...

A balanced scorecard approach to project management leadership

In this paper, we discuss ways that project managers can use measurement (using a tool such as the balanced scorecard) to improve the operational performance of their project teams. Project managers will see that attaching measures to outcomes clarifies project objectives and supports well-defined and well-communicated links between the project vision and business strategy. These also enable project managers to more effectively monitor and control project activities for the purpose of improving project results. This paper reinforces the importance of strategy as an added dimension to the traditional triple constraint. We present this information through our comparison and survey of two projects undertaken by project teams at a large North American global telecommunications organization. The results of our study provide early evidence of the usefulness of the balanced scorecard (BSC) as a tool for improving project management effectiveness. Our study also shows that balanced performance measurement is an important technique for establishing on-strategy project delivery. We propose using this technique primarily as an extension of current practices by adding a strategic measurement dimension.

Influence, stakeholder mapping and visualization

Stakeholder identification, management and engagement are recognized as key project management skills; however, this is a ‘soft’ skill that requires both intuition and a strong capacity for analysis. There are few tools and methodologies to which people undertaking stakeholder management activities can turn. Highly complex problem solving activities, such as stakeholder management, can benefit from high level conceptual approaches that allow those involved to see clearly or to visualize the situation being examined. Metaphors, particularly highly visual representations of complex situations, can be very helpful in triggering simplification of complex situations to a level where understanding of the situation can yield fruitful results in moving forward to developing plans and actions. Visualization tools for stakeholder management can be of great value. Describing stakeholder visualization tools that can be used to develop a stakeholder engagement strategy can therefore raise awareness of these tools. The development and use of two such tools are described. While they are both independently useful they could be effectively combined. This prospect could reduce the chances of project failure and enhance success through having clearer pictures of stakeholder influence patterns.

Project Pathogens: The Anatomy of Omission Errors in Construction and Resource Engineering Project

Construction and engineering projects are typically complex in nature and are prone to cost and schedule overruns. A significant factor that often contributes to these overruns is rework. Omissions errors, in particular, have been found to account for as much as 38% of the total rework costs experienced. To date, there has been limited research that has sought to determine the underlying factors that contribute to omission errors in construction and engineering projects. Using data derived from 59 in-depth interviews undertaken with various project participants, a generic systemic causal model of the key factors that contributed to omission errors is presented. The developed causal model can improve understanding of the archetypal nature and underlying dynamics of omission errors. Error management strategies that can be considered for implementation in projects are also discussed.

INFORMATION COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY (ICT) IMPLEMENTATION CONSTRAINTS: A CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE

– The purpose of this paper is to report upon research undertaken on deployment of information communication technology (ICT) diffusion initiatives in the Australian construction industry. The paper seeks to explain how innovation implementation drivers and barriers facilitate diffusion at the organisational, group and individual levels., – Data from two web‐based document management case studies and one intranet document management system case study are used to analyse ICT diffusion dynamics within three large information technology (IT) literate Australian construction firms. The sample was purposefully limited to large IT‐literate construction contracting organisations with a need to use ICT for their operational effectiveness., – Constraints at the personal level include limited budget for ICT investment, commitment from other project participants, issues of ICT standardisation, and security problems. At the organisational level, constraints include basic levels computer experience, time available to learn, and the identification of clear benefits of ICT use. Constraints at the group level include time available to share information, quality of personal contact and geographical distance., – The sample was purposefully limited to large IT‐literate construction contracting organisations with a need to use ICT for their operational effectiveness., – The driver and barrier models presented indicate that ICT innovation implementation requires intense management interventions to facilitate a supportive workplace environment that strongly links personal and organisational resource investment with demonstrated outcome benefits., – This study provides rich insights of the dynamics of ICT innovation implementation. Few studies in the literature have provided such insights that link the organisational, group and individual levels.