Chapter 11: A Framework for Analyzing the Development and Delivery of Large Capital Projects

Roger Miller, D.Sc., FCAE University of Quebec at Montreal
Brian Hobbs, Ph.D., PMP University of Quebec at Montreal

Introduction

The International Program on the Management of Large Engineering and Construction Projects (IMEC study) is based on sixty case studies of large capital projects on four continents. Projects studied were undertaken from the early 1980s to the present and were in the fields of electric power, urban transportation, roads, and tunnels. The analysis of the sixty projects has revealed the complexity of managing large capital projects and the corresponding richness of project management strategies that are required in order to initiate, develop, and deliver them successfully.

Projects experience difficulties not so much because engineers cannot cope with technical complications or side effects, but because sponsors cannot rise to the managerial challenges of coping with unforeseen turbulence, anchoring the projects in their social contexts, and developing strategic depth. Risks burst out as projects are being shaped and built. The longer the development time, the higher the likelihood it is that the project will be affected by emergent events. Turbulence can originate from exogenous events occurring outside of the control of management or from endogenous events arising within the project organization.

A logistic regression model has been built to help predict the performance of the sixty projects. The model, which predicts 87 percent of observed project performance, indicates two types of factors which significantly increase the probabilities of project success: 1) the completeness of the institutional arrangements and 2) the strategic abilities of sponsors as they steer and shape the project throughout trajectories.