THE IMPORTANCE OF COMMUNICATION ON PROJECT SUCCESS IN THE SINGAPORE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY

Abstract

Communication is an activity that is most basic to human interaction. People communicate to obtain and share information, show emotions, persuade and motivate. Even as the most basic need for human survival, the problem of effective communication has been around for decades. Communication in the construction industry is highly challenging due to the temporary nature of the project work and the team. When project participants gets used to communicating with the team, the project is already completed and another set of communication methods is imposed again. Furthermore, communication is often neglected and overlooked making it a major obstacle to project success. In this dissertation, the main objective is to establish the importance of communication in influencing project success. Literature review was first conducted to explain the theories of communication and the success factors in measuring project success. Survey questionnaires were then sent out to industry professionals. After which, data collected from the survey are analyzed and discussed. The common method and frequency of internal and external communication between the project managers from contractor firms and project stakeholders were investigated. In addition, to establish a link between communication and project success, success factors of construction projects are individually analyzed to identify the components in which communication is perceived as the most important. From the analysis, it could be concluded that communication is the bottom line or the core in achieving project success. Hence, the construction industry should give more focus and attention in developing effective communication in project teams. They could start off with establishing communication protocols in which the bigger and more well-established firms are currently working on. Another way to manage communication is to adopt the use of building information modelling to handle information transfer across different platforms, aid visual communication and increase involvement of project stakeholders. Lastly, it has to be noted that this research is limited only to the views and opinions of project managers working in contractor firms.