Critical Success Factors and Performance of House Construction Projects in Nyeri County, Kenya

Abstract

Different nations worldwide vary their critical success factors in major projects leading to varying performance, especially in the house projects. The variance is high mainly in the devolved system of government in developing nations. For instance, the majority of the houses in Nyeri County have been marked by County government awaiting demolition. The county stressed that there is reported increase in poorly constructed houses and a number of contractors did not follow the required procedure. The research aimed at determining the associations that exists between adhering to the critical success determinants of projects and performance of house construction project in Nyeri County, Kenya. The research’s specific objectives were aimed at establishing the influence of project planning, monitoring and evaluation, communication strategy and participation by stakeholders in the performance of house construction projects in Nyeri County. A census of the target population for the house construction project players were considered for the study, while stratified random sampling was used to identify the respondents from each strata of the project. The target population were 60 house construction projects while the respondents were the managers in the government sponsored house construction projects and managers in the private contractors’ house construction projects. Self-administered questionnaires were distributed to 60 respondents. The research used the project management theory, the change theory, and the planning theory. The research adopted a descriptive research technique that incorporated both qualitative and quantitative information. It helped in describing and analyzing phenomenon as they appear without bias. The primary data was gathered by the use of self-administered questionnaires by the use of drop and pick method where the respondents filled the questionnaire during their convenient time. Presentation of collected data was done using figures and tables. The collected data was sorted and analyzed using SPSS version 23.0. Analysis of data was done through descriptive and inferential analysis. The findings indicated that project planning incorporated project initiation. The study indicated that the department executives’ enhanced operational strategies and that the house firms had project objectives and deliverables that helped gain better performance. Findings indicated that project managers had not undergone monitoring and evaluation training as required. The results indicated that majority of the organization had clearly defined the percentage of project cost. The results presented that majority of respondents were committed to the project through collaborating with other stakeholders through communication. Findings indicate that communication is very important for the success of the project in an organization. Majority of the house projects lacked stakeholder’s involvement and hence there was low efficiency of project. The study concluded that changes in the performance of house projects is determined greatly by the changes in the monitoring, evaluation, project planning, stakeholder’s participation and communication. The research recommended that the County should facilitate training related to project planning, monitoring, controlling, and the methods of evaluating the construction companies and project managers in Nyeri County. The construction companies should ensure that planning should be the first priority, which should capture the budget for every phase of the projects. The study recommended that policy should be put in place to ensure departmental executives, project managers, the county officials and other stakeholder’s work together in ensuring adherence to the operational measures during project implementation