Mohammad Rahman

Delusional Optimism: Human Factors in Project Forecast

The context of this research is Australia's Infrastructure construction and Asset renewal projects aimed at identifying human factors affecting project performance in terms of schedule delays and cost overruns from several construction studies. The principal objective of this proposed research is to develop a robust project cost and schedule forecasting management system (forecasting model) along with the following sub-objectives: 01. To provide a detailed review of current industry practices for developing and monitoring project cost and schedule forecast. 02. To review the factors that comprehensively influence project forecasting inaccuracies and classify them into human factors. 03. To investigate the relationship between inaccurate forecasting and unsuccessful project outcome. 04. To outline a conceptual framework for robust project forecast incorporating human factors/behavioural intervention (delusional optimism).

This research project will benefit the Australian Infrastructure construction project industry and professionals (i.e. project managers and planners, schedulers, control specialists) via the following outcomes: 01. A detailed trend analysis of the completed projects that did not produce the expected outcome and develop a common understanding of the root causes/underlying reasons. 02. Identifies opportunities and shortcomings in the underlying concepts of project forecasting approaches at the implementation stage and thus clarifies their application for practitioners. 03. A conceptual framework that incorporates human factors for project practitioners which will help precise and accurate forecasting. The proposed research will be an interdisciplinary project of Business and Informatics under CQUniversity Graduate Research. The proposed analytical model for project forecasting will be a milestone achievement in the field of project management and CQUniversity research strength for Business and Informatics.