Drivers of project delivery capability: an empirical study

Abstract

Cycle times, customer satisfaction, quality differentiation and cost leadership in project delivery are competitive factors. They make the project delivery capability (PDC) at least as important as traditional sources of competitive advantage including economies of scale, knowledgeable human resources, know how and financial capital. Given the utmost importance of PDC, what strategies could organizations deploy in order to enhance their PDC? The authors' quest to answer this question began with a literature search that identified a set of factors frequently deployed in the industry. They termed this set project delivery factors. The expectation is that the factors should be able to enhance PDC measured in terms of project effectiveness-the degree of accomplishment of schedule, cost, quality and customer satisfaction goals for the project. They embarked on an exploratory research study to examine how project delivery factors could be used to increase PDC in companies. With this intent in mind, they proceeded to define PDC and project delivery factors, describe hypotheses, explain their methodology and discuss results and implications for project managers.