Benchmarking & Metrics Value of Best Practices

BM-VBP Topic Summary

Overview

Since the establishment of the Construction Industry Institute (CII) in 1983, its industry members and academic researchers have collaborated on research to improve the cost effectiveness of capital project delivery. CII research on the industry’s processes and methods has generated 17 best practices (through 2017) many of which have been adopted by the industry at large. The CII Best Practices are defined as “process[es] or method[s] that, when executed effectively, [lead] to enhanced project performance.” To qualify as a CII Best Practice, a practice must be sufficiently proven through extensive industry use and/or validation.

The Value of Best Practices (VBP) report had the following objectives:

Measure the levels of best practice use among CII members.
Gauge the impact of best practices, especially the joint impact of multiple best practices, on project performance. Project performance is measured in terms of cost growth, schedule growth, and safety performance.

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Key Findings and Implementation Tools

1 : Impact of CII Best Practices by Project Phase

The 2016 Value of Best Practice Report focuses on the impact of practices on phase outcomes (as opposed to overall project outcomes). The study was based on data collected for the CII 10-10 Program. Figures 33 and 34 show that organizational practices (team building and alignment) were associated with better phase outcomes (cost and schedule growth), across several phases. Other practices also found to have significant association with better phase outcomes include materials management, risk assessment, and quality management. (PAC2016-4, p37)

Reference: (PAC2016-4)

2 : Use of CII Best Practices

Owners implement Front End Planning, Zero Accidents Techniques, and Change Management more frequently and better than they implement other best practices. Contractors implement Zero Accidents Techniques, Project Risk Assessment, and Change Management more regularly and effectively than they implement other best practices. (BMM2010-4, p13)

Figure 10 illustrates how well the best practices were implemented by the owners and contractors.

Figure 12 presents the percentage of projects that scored a high level of use for each best practice. The numbers next to each best practice represent the sample size. The score ranges from 0 to 10, with 0 indicating no use of the best practice and 10 indicating full implementation. In Figure 12, a VBP score greater than or equal to 6.67 is considered “high use” or “well implemented.” By using this definition for “high use,” the team found Change Management, Zero Accidents Techniques, Planning for Start-up, and Front End Planning to be the four best practices that were well implemented. Figure 12 shows the percentage of projects implementing each best practice at a high level.

Reference: (BMM2010-4)

3 : Culture

A company with a strong improvement culture tends to implement best practices more effectively than does a company lacking an improvement culture. Significant benefits were observed on projects that implemented best practices well, in comparison to projects that minimally implemented best practices. Figure 13 shows the distribution of projects by their best practice use level and according to whether the respondent companies have good improvement cultures. (BMM2010-4, p18)

(See Table 1.) In general, projects submitted by organizations with good improvement cultures tend to implement best practices at higher levels than do projects submitted by organizations without strong improvement cultures. The average project cost growth decreased from 6.3 percent to –1.2 percent for the projects using Planning best practices at the fourth quartile level and the first-quartile level, respectively.