Senior Management Interview Paper

3.2.3.3 Respondent C
The third and last interview was conducted through a face-to-face in-depth interview with respondent C who is a project manager at CBRE Company in Sacramento, California. He has been living in Sacramento County for more than 20 years with more than 15 years of experience in construction project management. Through the in-depth interview with participant C, he shared his experiences and the factors he perceived as contributing to his project success as follow:
Based on the respondent C’s point of view, meeting client expectations and involvement of senior managers of the performing organization are the most critical factors in every project in order to be successfully accomplished. He mentioned that although the scope of
the project should be clear at the initial stages but the objective and schedule of the project are the major key factors for successful project. He declared that providing an effective planning at the early stages of the project will lead to the project success. Further he stressed that embracing technology and being up-to-date sometimes seems complicated but he believed it’s one of the main steps to project success. Moreover, he emphasized that in all the stages of a construction project a Clear communication between all the stakeholders and especially active collaboration of project team members are effective and important to manage complexity of the projects. He then added that choosing effective project team members and monitoring their performances during the project completion will be helpful to accomplish a project successfully. Lastly he mentioned that for a successful construction company follow up and control of all the activities during the project and the completed projects and their impacts is a must. Based on the experiences of respondent C, the following discussion is presenting as follow:

Involvement of Senior Manager
Respondent C believed that senior management involvement is critical for accomplishing project goals and objectives and aligning these with strategic business goals.
He thought that senior management involvement is needed throughout the initial and implementation phases of a project and it must be committed with its own involvement and willingness to allocate valuable resources to the implementation effort. He also mentioned that senior management has an overall responsibility for accepting and approving the project initiatives outlined in the information technology strategic plan, including funding and prioritization of projects before they are initiated. He continued that the measurement of senior management support in every project is based on the level of support for the project; frequency of attendance at project meetings; level of involvement in information requirements analysis; and level of involvement in decision-making relating to the project and level of allocating resources for project. He mentioned that senior management commitment is the factor that determines the tipping point between potential success and failure during developing and implementing construction projects. He added active participation by senior management during emergency procedures is a must to control the situation and take the necessary action to solve the problems and ease the process to achieve successful implementation of construction projects. He declared that the lack of senior
management involvement and commitment pose a significant risk factor for construction project success. Based on his experience, senior management support is one of the most critical success factors in construction projects.
Meeting Client Expectations
Regarding to meeting client expectation as one of the most critical success factors in construction projects, Respondent C explained that: Nowadays, traditional project success includes client satisfaction in addition to time, budget, and scope.
There are numerous cases where projects are implemented as planned, on budget, on time and accomplish the intended performance objectives, but turn out to be fully failures since they were unsuccessful to produce defined benefits to the client. Based on the complexity level of the project, the plan to meet the client’s expectations could vary from doing a general conversation with the project controller team to developing an official plan that is traced throughout the life of the project. He believed that the successful strategic management of projects is based on satisfying client needs. Client satisfaction not only in vital for project success but also leads to client retention, additional businesses, more gross margins and better long-term
revenues.
Objective of the Project
Regarding the Goal and objective factor, respondent C pointed out that the initial step in the project development process is to understand the rationale behind the project, the reason the project is needed, and the benefits of the project. In his opinion, the project objectives and goals are identified mainly based on the understanding of the client's needs. Effective objectives in managing construction projects are specific. A specific objective increases the chances of leading to a specific outcome. Therefore objectives shouldn't be vague. Based on his experience, he stressed that while there may be one major project objective, in pursuing it there may be interim project objectives. In most of the cases, project team individuals are tasked with attaining a sequence of goals in pursuit of the final goal. He also mentioned that for a successful construction project complementation, the goal and objective of the project should be well defined. In addition it should be accessible and managers and all the project team members should be aware of how far away the completion is. Further he emphasized that defining a clear and obtainable goal and objective is very important for project success.