Management Practices in the Ghanaian House Building Industry

Abstract

Against the background of the perennial management challenges facing the Ghanaian HouseBuilding Industry, project management practices in the implementation of Mass House Building Projects (MHBPs) is presented with a view to reflecting on their strength and weaknesses. The role of project managers (PMs) and their performance on these projects are reviewed including how they have helped or met project objectives especially in terms of completion dates and cost. The evidence gathered suggests that, professional project management services, emanating from project inception to completion can potentially help in minimizing the effects of some of the key managerial challenges. It is suggested that, all other things being equal, some characteristics of the professional project management services could be adopted and embodied into a framework within which current management practices can be advanced for improving effective delivery of future housing projects.

Determining Critical Project Success Criteria for Public Housing Building Projects (PHBPS) in Ghana

“…The reality remains that the notion of success is a much more complex issue and often an illusory construct (Westerveld, 2002). This has led to several efforts aimed at evolving some project success criteria for project management in both developed and developing economies (Ahadzie, 2010). However, the degree of originality, the peculiarity of conditions, the uniqueness of projects and the prevailing different objectives makes their wholesale adoption and application of little effect (Wateridge, 1998).…”

“…Project success particularly on public housing projects has been a major problem in Ghana (Konadu-Agyemang, 2001;Ahadzie, 2010). The foremost challenge has always been the ambiguities associated with assessing success on such projects and until this is resolved, it will be very difficult to accurately monitor and anticipate project outcomes effectively.…”

“…The measure of success has always been assessed at the completion stage of the project. However, studies have shown that when the measuring indicators are known from the onset, the assessment will be largely uncomplicated (Ahadzie, 2010). Pinto and Slevin (1988) argued that any success criteria developed must perform its intended purpose, must be 'right' or acceptable for the intended clients.…”

“…Studies on the subject have largely focused on developing an uderstanding of success models (Ahadzie, 2010). Given the varied nature of PHBPs as against one-off projects, measurement of success significantly differs from place to place and from project to project (Ashely, 1988;Mahdi, 2004).…”

Investigating Challenges in Financing Contractors for Public Sector Projects in Ghana

“…However, these studies show poor performance by both large and small scale contractors. Other authors also claim that performance is greatly hindered due to managerial inefficiencies [5] [6] [7]. Most gov-ernment contracts are poorly planned in the mist of government's fiscal constraint [8] while managerial issues affect contractor performance [9].…”