Critical Success Factors for Construction Projects

A building project is completed as a result of a combination of many events and interactions, planned or unplanned, over the life of a facility, with changing participants and processes in a constantly changing environment. This paper defines a set of conditions or factors that, when thoroughly and completely satisfied on a project, ensures the successful completion of the facility. Success on a project means that certain expectations for a given participant were met, whether owner, planner, engineer, contractor, or operator. These expectations may be different for each participant. The factors that predicate success were initially derived from the Integrated Building Process Model developed at Penn State by Sanvido in 1990. These factors were then tested on sixteen projects and the results showed excellent correlation between project success and achievement of the factors. Finally, the four factors most critical to success are presented.