Towards a Framework for Promoting Communication during Project Definition

Hafsa Chbaly, Daniel Forgues and Samia Ben Rajeb
Additional contact information
Hafsa Chbaly: Department of Construction Engineering, École de Technologie Supérieure, Montreal, QC H3C 1K3, Canada
Daniel Forgues: Department of Construction Engineering, École de Technologie Supérieure, Montreal, QC H3C 1K3, Canada
Samia Ben Rajeb: BATir Department, École Polytechnique de Bruxelles, Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), 1050 Brussels, Belgium

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 17, 1-19

Abstract: Project definition refers to the first three stages of a project life cycle, namely planning, programming, and preliminary design during which client needs are identified and translated into design solutions. An ill-defined hospital project definition may lead to hospital-acquired infections or patient mortality. The traditional management practices have been proved to be inadequate since architects usually do not communicate with users, and thus do not have detailed knowledge about how services are performed in the building. There is the need for more knowledge about the subject to improve and thus promote client value generation. This study first reviews factors that impact the communication between architects and clients during project definition based on the literature. The study then offers a framework based on these factors to help managers assess and improve communication between professionals and clients. The validity of the framework will then be empirically validated and revised based on findings of a longitudinal mega-hospital case study. The main objective of the current investigation is to improve the project definition practices of complex projects, and the assumption is that an effective communication provides more value to end users, as well as better project performance in terms of environmental and social sustainability.

Keywords: project definition; alignment; communication; value (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/17/9861/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/17/9861/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:17:p:9861-:d:627913

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().