Schedule Success Factors in Construction Projects in a War-Affected Region

Abstract

The timely completion of public construction projects is an essential consideration from social, economic, and political perspectives. However, the complex socioeconomic and political environments in war-affected countries impact the schedule performance in construction projects. Because of prolonged war and conflicts, buildings and infrastructure in Afghanistan have required rebuilding and new construction. This research was undertaken in the context of Afghanistan to identify the critical success factors for improving schedule performance in public construction projects. First, an initial list of 70 success factors extracted from the existing literature was reduced to 30 critical schedule success factors using the Delphi method. Next, a questionnaire survey was conducted across the Afghan construction industry to examine the relative importance of various success factors. Based on 156 completed survey responses, the top five critical success factors for the timely completion of public construction projects in Afghanistan are the availability of resources, the project manager’s competence, regular monitoring and control, the project being in the public interest, and proper planning. Additionally, four public construction projects that were under construction or recently completed were evaluated as case studies to discover the links between the identified critical success factors and the projects’ schedule performance. This research showed that the most important factors affecting schedule performance in public construction projects in war-affected regions are also relevant in the context of construction projects in other countries. However, the severity of these factors can be very high in war-affected countries because of a lack of resources, skill and competency problems, project planning issues, and corruption. The research also found that the macroeconomic environment and security of project personnel are relatively less important factors that otherwise are considered to be the most important factors in war-affected regions.