EVALUATION OF THE IMPACT OF PLANNING TECHNIQUES ON CONSTRUCTION PROJECT PERFORMANCE IN NIGERIA

Purpose: Time and cost overruns are two of the major criticisms against the Nigerian construction industry. Extant literature indicates that the planning technique used for the execution of construction project will determine its performance. However, there seems to be scanty empirical evidence on the impact of planning techniques on project performance in the literature. This study hence evaluated impact of planning techniques on construction project performance in Nigeria.

Design/methodology/approach: A descriptive survey using structured questionnaire was conducted on medium and large scale contracting firms in Lagos State, Nigeria using random sampling technique. One hundred and twenty (120) respondents were sampled out of a sampling frame of 159 contracting firms in these categories in the study area. Primary data were collected on the usage of the techniques while archival data were collected on the time and cost performances of the planning techniques used in the study area. The data collected were analysed using mean score, mean and percentage.

Findings: The results from the study indicated that Gantt/bar chart is the planning technique mostly used in the study area. Moreover, critical path method and PERT out-performed the other planning techniques in completion time and cost, respectively while bar chart performed least in both completion time and cost.

Research limitations/Implications: The paper presents project managers the insight that construction projects perform low in cost and time because innovative techniques are not used in their execution.

Originality/value: This paper complements existing literature on the planning techniques used for project execution in the Nigerian construction industry by providing information on cost and time performances.