At this stage, construction industry is known for bad project performances and a culture characterized by adversarial behaviours. The Last Planner System (LPS) is designed to improve these circumstances through the enhancement of workflow reliability by involving various disciplines in joint planning processes and a culture of collaboration. How to actually measure related project team culture (PTC) is unknown at this stage. This paper tries to close this gap and compares two defined versions of the Ideal Lean Culture for organizations with the actual PTC in projects using the LPS.It first presents the two Ideal Lean Cultures for organizations, based on a framework developed for organizations (the Competing Values Framework -CVF). Next, it examines on the basis of three case studies the applicability of the CVF for measuring the actual culture in project teams using the LPS and compares it with the named Ideal Lean Culture conditions.The paper concludes that the CVF is a suitable tool to take a snapshot of the PTC and that the comparison to the Ideal Lean Culture can give conclusions about the current project team's maturity in projects using the LPS.
This paper examines the current state of project cultures in the German turnkey construction industry and the ideal project cultures in terms of partnering from the perspective of various key stakeholders (i.e., Investors, General Contractors, (Sub-)Contractors and Designers). To investigate the current and ideal cultures, data were gathered among the key stakeholders by means of a survey study with 72 respondents divided over 12 companies. The respondents rated the current and desired cultures by using the Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument, which belongs to the Competing Values Framework. The investigations show many similarities and differences between the stakeholder perspectives of the current and the idealized partnering project cultures. Mainly, the General Contractors desire more cooperative behaviors than the (Sub-)Contractors, and the Investors desire more pronounced flexibility than the General Contractors. All stakeholders desire a cultural change from highly competitive behaviors toward more cooperation. Changes in terms of clear procedures or more flexibility are only desired by the Designers. Defining both the current and an ideal partnering project culture enables academics and project managers to compare their actual project cultures to an ideal situation. With such an approach, academics and project managers could measure whether new tools or changes in resources affect their project cultures toward a partnering project culture.
While the projectification of society continues to evolve, it is clearly lagging behind in the public construction sector in Germany. The purpose of the research upon which this article is based was to reveal the role that leadership has on the projectification of the construction sector and to identify the differences between the public and private sectors. Building on the theoretical concept of Institutional Work, semi-structured focus group interviews were conducted on both sides of the construction sector in Germany to ultimately reconcile the findings. The interview’s transcripts were analyzed by applying qualitative content analysis. The responses from the private sector show a very high significance of projects for everyday work and a further trend toward projectification in enterprises. This development is attributable to a positive image of executing projects in the private sector and to the leadership provided. In contrast, projects in the public sector still play a rather subordinate role and tend to be perceived culturally and cognitively as being exceptional. As projects are increasingly important for the public sector, leaders can play a key role in nurturing the necessary cultural and cognitive conditions for projectification. The application of Institutional Work concepts opens promising perspectives for future research in the context of projectification.
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the Last-Planner-System’s impact on project cultures in terms of partnering. Design/methodology/approach A case study was performed using multiple data gathering approaches. The project cultures of three projects not applying the Last-Planner-System were compared with three projects that apply the Last-Planner-System. In total, 30 participants were involved in the study. Semi-structured interviews were held and analysed by applying qualitative content analysis. Also, the “organizational culture assessment instrument”, which belongs to the “competing values framework”, was used by means of an online survey. Findings The Last-Planner-System leads to increased levels of mutual understanding and control about the tasks and issues of the other parties. This detailed overview leads towards a more distinguished evaluation of the trustworthiness of individuals. This does not necessarily lead to a partnering project culture. Originality/value The contribution to research is that higher levels of transparency and mutual understanding do not necessarily lead to a high level of trust. Rather, transparency could be seen as a controlling mechanism that leads to better-founded estimations about the trustworthiness of others in the project.
For several years, Lean Construction has been an established management approach in the construction industry. Despite the high popularity of Lean Construction, the philosophy is far from being applied in all companies and projects. When changing the construction management methods, the use of Lean Construction represents a massive transformation of working methods and project culture. Studies show examples of failed implementations of Lean Construction and barriers like lacking understanding of Lean Construction methods. Thus, accompanying change by systematic change management processes is important in order to implement it successfully in the long term. Efficient and targeted training to enable the workforce to apply Lean Construction methods is one way to foster the change. Gamification supports a motivating design of such training. The concept pursues the game-like design of non-game contexts to transfer the motivation gamers show in videogames to those non-game contexts. Despite its success in other industries, gamification has not been used frequently in the construction industry. Nevertheless, approaches of the concept are already included in Lean Construction training. In this paper we propose an exploratory study to improve the effectiveness of training on Lean Construction using Gamification. Various trainings on different Lean Construction methods like the Last Planner® System, takt planning and takt control, 5S and A3, were observed and show the potential of gamification for Lean Construction, but also room for improvements. The presented exploratory study provides guidance for the integration of gamification in Lean Construction training. Applying the concept of Gamification can improve the learning outcome of trainings and employee's motivation to use Lean Construction methods.
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