Suat Gunhan

Assessing coordination performance based on centrality in an e-mail communication network

AbstractBuilding design and construction require the collective effort of diverse project participants. The coordination performance of these project participants is important for effective management and needs to be assessed periodically. However, there is no uncomplicated quantitative way to measure coordination. Measuring coordination is cumbersome and time-consuming particularly during the project execution phase. This study proposes an easy procedure for monitoring the coordinative performance of project participants. The degree, betweenness, and closeness centrality measures of the project participants in a wayfinding signage project at a major airport construction project are calculated using social network analysis on the e-mail communication network between the participants. A centrality index is defined for each firm based on the average of these three centrality measures. The firm’s coordination score is also calculated based on content analysis of the sent and received e-mails between the part...

Towards advanced solutions for achieving sustainability goals in buildings: Lessons learned from case studies

Sustainable building projects deal with a multitude of technical, environmental, economic, social, organizational, and innovation-related issues, to name but a few. Achieving sustainability goals depends on how well these issues are handled. While some sustainable building projects are quite successful, some are not. It is therefore important to learn lessons from past projects. This research aims to reveal the key lessons concerning sustainability-related issues in building projects. To that end, challenges in the achievement of sustainability goals of building projects are discussed, and lessons learned systems are examined. After that, the events experienced by project managers in a large number of sustainable building projects are obtained from a major public agency’s website and are analyzed. The findings show the key lessons that have an important impact on the success/failure of sustainable building projects. The expected contribution of the study is to foster advanced solutions for future sustainable projects.