Using Post-Project Reviews for Risk Assessment of Construction Projects

2022-8-26
Shokouhi, Pegah
Risk management (RM) is about identifying risk factors, analyzing their impacts on project success, and developing management strategies to mitigate them. Learning from previous projects to make better predictions in forthcoming projects is critical for the success of RM activities. Many construction companies conduct post-project reviews (PPRs) to record lessons learned (LL) from projects. However, if these reports do not contain the necessary risk-related information and are not prepared and stored in the proper format, they cannot be utilized during a risk assessment. This thesis aims to explore post-project appraisal practices in construction companies, types of knowledge retained by these reports, and particularly investigate how these reports used during risk informed decision making. In order to explore current practices and learn the opinions of experts on the utilization of PPRs in forthcoming projects, semi-structured interviews are conducted. Four experts from four medium-large scale construction companies that have international experience are interviewed. Interviews were transcribed, and qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews was carried out by using the QSR Nvivo qualitative data analysis software. Findings revealed how PPRs could be used for learning from previous projects and risk assessment and formulating potential ways/strategies to improve this process. The study's key findings include as follow: organizations must determine required risk knowledge and LL and target those lessons to particular audiences; the format and content of the PPRs dictate how the lessons should be obtained, stored, and disseminated for risk assessment of projects; lack of administration involvement to the PPR process is the most critical barrier to include and use risk knowledge. The findings strongly indicate that collecting and sharing risk knowledge should be based on a structured strategy to increase the benefits of applying PPRs for risk assessment of construction projects. It is believed that thesis findings will contribute to the body of knowledge on project risk management, and the study will provide practical contributions for construction companies aim to improve their risk management systems.

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Citation Formats
P. Shokouhi, “Using Post-Project Reviews for Risk Assessment of Construction Projects,” M.S. - Master of Science, Middle East Technical University, 2022.