- Poor Leadership – Owner leadership and competency is critical. At the end of the day, the vast majority of projects are late, over budget, or otherwise unsatisfactory due to owners lack of planning, procurement, selected project delivery method, or overall poor management. Inadequate knowledge of fundamental LEAN construction processes and asset total cost of ownership management principles is commonplace.
- Lack of Outcome Focus – All internal and external team members must have a joint focus upon mutually beneficial outcomes. While this is a core aspect of LEAN, it is rarely the case in common practice. Change management is sorely needed throughout the AECOO sector. Traditional project delivery methods, and even design-build, fail to consistently produce the superior outcomes of LEAN construction methods such as Integrated Project Delivery and Job Order Contracting.
- Inadequate Scope of Work – A poorly defined and/or poorly defined scope of work spells disaster for any construction project and results in cost overruns, change orders, and legal disputes.
- Non-standardized and non-centralized information – One example is the failure to consistently use locally researched detailed line item construction cost data and associated organization using CSI MasterFormat. The common use of granular construction task information, in plain English, complete with labor, material, equipment and crew breakdowns services to fully communicate Scope of Work. (Note: Using a national average cost database is not the sames as using a locally researched database. Furthermore, using economic cost factors to update information is also problematic with respect to producing current actionable information.)
- Improper Use of Technology – Far too many organizations consider technology a solution versus an enabler. Technology should ALWAYS be secondary to selecting and assuring appropriate processes, construction delivery methods, documentation, team selection/development, etc. Technology is not a solution, but rather an enabler.
- Failure to Define Success – Quantitative key performance indicators are needed to establish measurable goals and what is considered a successful outcome. In short, “it is impossible to manage what you don’t measure”.
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Construction project fail due to poor leadership, lack of outcome focus, inadequate scope of work, non-standardized information, and lack of metrics.