Identifying Causes of Failure in Providing Geotechnical and Environmental Consulting Services

Abstract

After first defining “failure,” the writers present the results of their examination of over 50 published and unpublished case histories of failures related to geotechnical and environmental consulting services. The case‐history analysis indicates that there are four main participants in failures and a multiple of contributory causes. Tabular summaries of the frequency of occurrence of contributing causes and main participants were prepared separately for geotechnical and environmental cases. Findings indicate that there are at least two to three contributing causes leading to failure as well as a multiple of key participants. For geotechnical cases, the leading contributing causes were: clients or contractors not following the professionals' recommendations and lack of disclosure by the professional of risk, uncertainties, and consequences. For environmental cases, the most frequent contributing cause of failure was lack of staff training. It is concluded that, to significantly reduce the frequency of failures, attention and resources must be applied to the acts and policies of senior management and project management in professional service firms.