Construction project control in the UK: Current practice, existing problems and recommendations for future improvement

The aim of this study is to address the main deficiencies with the prevailing project cost and time control practice for construction projects in the UK. A questionnaire survey was carried out with 250 top companies to establish the current practice and identify existing problems. This was followed by in-depth interviews with 15 experienced practitioners from these companies in order to gain further insights of the identified problems and their experience of good practice on how these problems can be tackled. On the basis of these interviews and synthesis with existing literature, a list of 65 good practice recommendations have been developed for the key project controls tasks: planning, monitoring, reporting and analysing. The Delphi method was then used, with the participation of a panel of 8 practitioner experts, to evaluate these improvement recommendations and to establish the degree of their relevance. After two rounds of the Delphi, these recommendations are put forward as “critical”, “important”, or “helpful” measures for improving project control practice in the UK construction industry.