Despite the availability of various control techniques and project control software many construction projects still do not achieve their cost and time objectives. Research in this area so far has mainly been devoted to identifying causes of cost and time overruns. There is limited research geared towards studying factors inhibiting the ability of practitioners to effectively control their projects. To fill this gap, a survey was conducted on 250 construction project organizations in the UK, which was followed by face-to-face interviews with experienced practitioners from 15 of these organizations. The common factors that inhibit both time and cost control during construction projects were first identified. Subsequently 90 mitigating measures have been developed for the top five leading inhibiting factors—design changes, risks/uncertainties, inaccurate evaluation of project time/duration, complexities and non-performance of subcontractors were recommended. These mitigating measures were classified as: preventive, predictive, corrective and organizational measures. They can be used as a checklist of good practice and help project managers to improve the effectiveness of control of their projects.Cost control, interview, practice, project control, project management,

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.

In construction projects, the aim of project control is to ensure projects finish on time, within budget and achieve other project objectives. During the last few decades, numerous project control methods have been developed and adopted by project managers in practice. However, many of the existing methods focus on describing what the processes and tasks of project control are; not on how these tasks should be carried out. There is also a potential gap between principles that underlies these methods and project control practice. As a result, time and cost overruns are still common in construction projects partly due to deficiencies of the existing project control methods and difficulties in implementing them. This paper describes a new project cost and time control model, developed through a study involving extensive interaction with construction practitioners in the UK, which better reflects the real needs of project managers. A set of good practice checklist is also developed to facilitate the implementation of the model.

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