2005 Winch Kelsey What Do Construction Planners Do

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF

PROJECT MANAGEMENT
International Journal of Project Management 23 (2005) 141–149 www.elsevier.com/locate/ijproman

What do construction project planners do?
Graham M. Winch a b

a,*

, John Kelsey

b

Centre for Research in the Management of Projects, University of Manchester, P.O. Box 88, Manchester M60 1QD, UK Centre for Research in the Management of Projects, School of Construction and Project Management, The Bartlett University College London, UK Received 8 July 2003; received in revised form 30 January 2004; accepted 15 June 2004

Abstract Construction project planning is receiving growing attention as the limitations of formal deterministic planning are becoming more widely recognised. In particular, the last planner and critical chain approaches are diffusing rapidly. However, little of this debate has been informed by empirical examination of what construction project planners actually do. The research reported here draws on three different research projects. One on the overall context of construction project planning, and two focused on requirements capture for the virtual construction site system. For the later project, 18 construction planners were interviewed on their daily practice. The results show that construction planning for principal contractors is more about negotiation with other interested parties and rapid decision-making based on heuristics than detailed analysis. Ó 2004 Elsevier Ltd and IPMA. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Construction project planning: Critical path analysis: Tendering

1. Introduction There has been considerable debate over the last decade or so on the effectiveness of construction project planning. However, there is remarkably little research into what construction project planners actually do. The research reported here was undertaken as part of the requirements capture process for the development of the VIRCON system (VCS) as a strategic decision support tool for construction

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