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Impact of requirements planning on the success of the public residential projects in Pakistan

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Abstract

There is no significant predictive model that can be used to predict the impact of requirements planning on the success of the residential construction project in literature. The main aim of this research is to find out the impact of requirements planning on the success of the public residential projects in Pakistan. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 29 policy makers in the first part of the study. We also send the questionnaire to 70 construction companies by employing non-probability convenience sampling in the second quantitative part of the study. We received 178 responses. Thematic analysis of the interviews of the policy makers revealed that they define success in terms of project management and product and consider six practices critical for requirements planning. These practices are 1. Advance planning of tracking and reporting of requrements. 2. Configuration Management. 3. Establishment of requirements prioritization process. 4. Use of metrics for performance measurement of requirements. 5. Capturing traceability structure. 6. Clear definition of the roles and responsibilities of the stakeholders who will participate in the requirements management process. We conducted principal component, correlation and regression analyses to analyze the survey responses. The research findings clearly showed that requirements planning positively impacts the success of the project. For the policy makers, requirements planning impacts product success more and for the construction practitioners, it has more impact on the project management success. There is a communication gap between the policy makers and the practitioners. Issues between federal and the provincial governments about land acquisition, political vested interests, project management training issues and the long design phase are the main impediments in the requirements planning. Traditional project management (upfront planning) practices are preferred over agile or lean (incremental planning).

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Fig. 1

Source Board of Investment Pakistan Housing and Construction Sector Brief (2020)

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The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The researcher would like to thank Association of Builders and Developers of Pakistan and Project Management Institute Islamabad Chapter for their administrative support for this research.

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This research study was funded by the Association of Builders and Developers of Pakistan.

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  1. Edinburgh Business School, Heriot-Watt University, Campus The Avenue, Edinburgh, EH14 4AS, UK

    Arslan Shahid Butt

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Corresponding author is the only author of this study. Corresponding author contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by ASB who is the only author of this manuscript. The first draft of the manuscript was written by ASB. He has read and approved the final manuscript.

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Butt, A.S. Impact of requirements planning on the success of the public residential projects in Pakistan. J Hous and the Built Environ 38, 1313–1351 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10901-022-09997-3

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