Assessing the applicability of earned value management Technique in enhancing performance of construction Projects in Uganda: a case of Kampala city

Abstract

Monitoring is the most important component in project management. It deals with measuring performance of a project at certain time intervals and reports that performance to the organization for process control. Any project with considerable cost overrun and schedule delay typically gets in trouble at its beginning, and unfortunately, project managers do not realize this problem until late in the implementation when their ability to recover the project to achieve its planned objectives diminishes. This study aimed at assessing the applicability of Earned Value Management (EVM) technique on measuring the performance of construction projects in Kampala City, and adopted a mixed method research design that employed both quantitative and qualitative techniques. Data were collected and analyzed using SPSS software. The study established that among the standard practices used in measuring performance Critical Path method was the most commonly used. This means that emphasis should be put to understanding the effect of this method to performance of projects. It was further established that barriers that hinder the effective application of Earned Value Management Technique were as follows in descending significance, with the use of construction equipment having a significance level of 84.3%, followed by level of technology at 78.2%, labour ratesat 20.9%, and material prices at 19.7%; and based on these findings a performance monitoring tool for construction projects was developed as = − 5.698 + 0.197 + 0.181 + 0.036 + 0.009 . The study thus concluded that EVM techniques are less commonly used and less known than Critical path method and PERT method for measuring performance of construction projects. The study further concluded that the application of EVM on projects is greatly affected by labour rates, and material prices as indicated in the developed performance monitoring tool. It is envisaged that the developed tool will be useful in monitoring the performance of projects right from inception to completion paying most attention to equipment, technology in used, cost of labour and material costs. Key Words Earned Value Management, technique, Construction Projects, Performance Measurement, Kampala city.