Development of a framework to determine the relative weights of contextual factors for complex highway projects
Date
2017
Authors
Sinha, Akanksha, author
Ozbek, Mehmet E., advisor
Strong, Kelly C., committee member
Atadero, Rebecca, committee member
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Abstract
Traditional project management strategies for highway projects originated with the advent of new construction during the 1950s and 1960s focusing on three dimensions of complexity i.e. cost, schedule and technical (scope). But recently with the major focus shifting towards reconstruction/ rehabilitation projects, the project management strategies also need to shift to include other dimensions rather than perceiving them as risks. A paper by Winter and Smith (2006), "Rethinking Project Management", introduced five new directions to consider while preparing a risk management strategy for complex projects. Following this, a research was conducted by the Second Strategic Highway Research Program, R-10, to study the factors that impact the construction of complex highway projects. The primary outcome of the R-10 study was a five-dimensional approach to project management planning (5DPM) that adds context and financing as two new dimensions to the traditional dimensions of cost, schedule, and technical. Experience during the pilot testing of the 5DPM implementation suggested that the most complicated dimension to assess during the project management planning phase for a complex project is the context dimension which refers to the external factors that have an impact on the project and are difficult to predict and plan for before the start of the project. Currently there is no structured process for evaluating these factors and they are mostly perceived as risks. The R-10 research team identified 8 factor categories which are: stakeholders, project-specific demands, resource availability, environmental, legal and legislative requirements, global and national events, unusual conditions and localized issues and 26 factors under these categories which can cause complexity. The research developed a framework to identify the contextual factors relevant to each specific project and determine the relative weights of these contextual factors using a well-structured approach, the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). Two complex projects within the state of Colorado, U.S. 34 Rebuild and I-25 North Expansion project, were chosen to illustrate the implementation of the developed framework. The primary reason for selecting AHP method was the requirement of pairwise comparison of intangibles derived through the judgement of the experts in a structured mathematical method. The Group AHP was further performed to develop the overall ranking of the contextual factors as a group. The major finding of this study was that as a group, the US 34 Rebuild team valued procedural laws and land acquisition as the most important factor followed by work-zone visualization and marketing and public relations. For the I-25 team, the most important factor was procedural laws followed by limitations and constraints and project management capabilities. The most striking difference between the factor weights for both the projects was that the weights were more evenly distributed between factors for US-34, whereas for I-25, few factors had very high weights while few others had exceptionally low weights. This framework will enable the project management teams of complex highway projects to determine the relevant weights of the factors during the project management planning phase which can help them in making important decisions at the early stages of the project. Through the development of this framework, this study helps transportation agencies identify the contextual factors and prioritize them right from the start in a structured manner rather than perceiving them as risks for their projects.