Exploring project success: Measuring the Success of Public Building

Construction Projects in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Asefa Zemedkun, MSc in Project Management

ABSTRACT
Purpose
The measurement of project success in the construction industry, in general, has been
grounded in the conventionally accepted objective oriented success metrics. However, recent
evidences in the field has suggested a holistic perspective than the traditional measures that
considers subjective as well as objective metrics in assessing project success. The main
purpose of the study is to examine the success rate of the public building construction
projects in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia by devising a project success measurement model. The
failure of governmental building construction projects has a negative effect on the
development of any country; particularly, for those developing countries like Ethiopia that
use foreign loans for such purposes.

Design/methodology/approach
The study adopted a descriptive and explanatory research design. A structured
questionnaire was used to collect data from 78 purposely selected key project stakeholders
and analyzed using both descriptive and inferential data analysis techniques, including
fuzzy scientific evaluation model and earned value analysis method.

Findings
The result of fuzzy scientific evaluation model revealed that from the studied projects, 6 out
of 11 and 4 out of 11 showed moderately and slightly successful performance. The result of
earned value method implies that 9 out of 10 projects (due to data limitation one project is
not included in the analysis) recorded poorly successful performance in terms of both cost
and time criterion. The results of both models are almost the same.

Research limitations/implications
Although this study is confined to only the quantitative aspect in examining the success rate
of public building construction projects in Addis Ababa, it provides an important insight to
Policies and strategies intended to improve the performance of construction projects in Addis
Ababa in Ethiopia

Originality/value:
This study is important especially to decision-makers to make informed decisions regarding
public building construction projects performance management in Ethiopia. In this regard, this
study provides valuable information and evidence on the success rate of public building
construction projects in Addis Ababa by devising a context referenced project success
measurement model.
.
Keywords: Project success measurement model; Project success criterion; Fuzzy scientific
evaluation model; earned value analysis
Paper type: Research paper

1.Introduction
The construction sector is among the key sectors for the economic development of any
country. Because the sector has a significant contribution to the development of other sectors
of the economy. The sector also provides a significant amount of capital investment,
contributes to the national output, and creates employment opportunities through its multiplier
effect (Walker and Flanagan, 1991). In most countries, the construction sector constitutes
more than half of capital investment, contributes up to 10% of GDP, and 28% of all industrial
employment (Winch, 2002). Thus, the development of the construction sector has a multiplier
effect for the development of other sectors of the economy; particularly, the service,
agriculture, and industry sectors.

Despite its contribution, the development of the construction sector in the world, Ethiopia, has
been challenged by problems of project failure. In the world, more than half of construction
project owners worldwide experienced one or more under-performing projects despite
confidence in project planning and control, and only 31% of these projects came within 10%
of the budget and 25% of them within 10% of the original deadlines (KPMG International,
2015). In Africa, from the studied 20 mega construction projects, 50% of public-private
partnership projects, 25% of private projects, and 83.3% of governmental projects were
delayed; approximately, only 20% of projects reach into final closure (Africa Construction
Trend Report, 2017). Similarly, in Ethiopia, most of the building construction projects suffered
both time and cost overrun problems, and the actual rate of cost performance range from a
minimum 12% to the maximum 60%, and the time performance range from a minimum 7%
to the maximum 170% of the contractual agreement (Abera and Fikadu, 2016); the
construction projects schedule slippage ranges between 61-80% of the planned time and other
variables such as risk, safety, resource utilization, and quality deviates from the planned target
by 21-40% (Tadesse et al, 2016).

In general, most construction projects in Ethiopia are characterized by time overrun, cost
overrun, quality, and safety and health-related problems (Ministry of Construction, as cited in
All-Africa, 2018). Thus, the key project stakeholders are always looking forward to seeing
their respective projects perform well: to be finished on time, within budget, meets technical
and functional requirements, and ensures their satisfaction (Davies, 2002; Khosravi and
Afshari, 2011; Amponsah, 2010; Bryde and Brown, 2004).

In Ethiopia, most building construction project stakeholders; particularly, federal government-

financed projects don’t have consistent and standardized project success measurement model
either from clients or contractors’ side. Hence, the main purpose of the study was to measure
the level of the success of federal government public building construction projects in Addis
Ababa, Ethiopia by using a devised project success measurement model and earned value
technique. The result of the study helps the project stakeholders to periodically measure and
determine the success rate of their respective project in order to take proactive and continual
improvement actions in relation to cost, time, quality, profitability, client satisfaction, staff
satisfaction, environmental impact, safety and health, scope creep and communication failure;
and narrow empirical gaps in relation to the adoption and application of projects success
measurement model.

2.Literature review
This section presents the literature review on project success, project success measurement
models, fuzzy scientific evaluation model, and earned value analysis technique.
2.1.Project success
Many authors have conducted research on project success criteria through there is no
agreement on the success criteria of the project. Because project success means different things
to different projects, authors, and practitioners. Earlier work by Gaddis (1959) suggested that
project success concerns three factors: time, budget, and project performance. Kerzner (1998)
identified the standard criteria for project success which affects the project performance at
different stages of a project life cycle: time, cost, and specification. Kerzner (1999) also further
expands his definition of success criteria by acknowledging that the project must be acceptable
to the customers and must be completed within the mutually agreed upon scope change,
without disturbing the main flow of work of the organization and without changing the
corporate culture.

Atkinson (1999) separates success criteria into delivery and post-delivery stages. The ‘iron
triangle’, has a cost, time and quality as its criteria (for the delivery stage); and post-delivery
stages comprise: (i) the information system, with such criteria as maintainability, reliability,
validity, information quality use; (ii) benefit (organizational): improved efficiency, improved
effectiveness, increased profits, strategic goals, organizational learning, and reduced waste; (iii)
benefit (stakeholder community): satisfied users, social and environmental impact, personal
development, professional learning, contractors profits, capital suppliers, content project team
and economic impact to the surrounding community. For the delivery stage or the iron, the
triangle is the most widely accepted project success criterion though due to change in the
internal and external environment these criteria are not the sole determinants of projects
successfully. Thus, considering other project success dimensions or the post-delivery stage and
others is so important.

A further study conducted by Baker, Fisher, and Murphy (1983) strongly confirms the
importance of including client satisfaction within any measure of project success. Baker et al
(1983) also concluded that in the long run, what matters is whether the parties associated with
and affected by a project are satisfied.

Thus, the study summarized the finding of numerous studies that are conducted on project
success criteria or dimensions in the construction and development sector as presented in table
2.1.

Table 2.1. Summary of project success criteria

Authors
Gaddis Bedell, Baker et al Amponsah, Khosravi & Bryde & Cheung et
Success criteria (1959) (1983) (1983) (2010) Afshari, Brown, (2004) al., (2004)
(2011)
Time x x x x x x x
Cost x x x x x x x
Quality x x x x x x
Client satisfaction x x x x
Stakeholders satisfaction x
Safety and health x x
Technical specification x
Business success x
Communication x
Industry Development and others Construction

Although project success can be described and measured using certain success criteria as
depicted in the summary table above (table 2.1), the study adopted selected indicators
including time, cost, quality, client satisfaction, staff satisfaction, safety and health, scope
creep, business success or profitability, environmental impact and communication failure
criterion to measure the success of federal government public building construction projects
in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (see the section below for justification).

2.2.Project success measurement models

In order to adopt a relevant model to measure the success of construction projects success in
for this study; a review of the existing models including the artificial network model adopted
by Mahdi, Ali & Hosein (2017), fuzzy scientific evaluation model (Osie-Kyet and Albert,
2018), and Shahrzad and Hamidreza (2017) was made to adapt to this study context. In the
model proposed by Osie-Kyet and Albert (2018) to measure project success in construction
projects in Hong Kong, they have identified and used 15 project success criteria: time, cost,
risk management, quality, service operation, project life cycle cost, reduce administrative cost,
client satisfaction, long term relationship and partnership, environmental performance,
profitability, public protest, litigation and dispute, technology transfer, and economic impact.
Then, a structured questionnaire was distributed to respondents to rate the relative importance
of the identified project success criteria; and rank the success criteria according to their mean
and normalization score results. Then, they dropped those success criteria whose
normalization value is below 0.5. In the next step, they categorized those critical success
criteria whose normalization value above 0.5 into four categories; and the identified critical
success criteria and grouping results were changed into a weighting score. Then, the
membership function for critical success criteria was determined based on respondents’
response to the relative importance of each critical success criterion; and the membership
function of critical success criteria grouping was determined by the use of fuzzy evaluation
matrix. Then, the membership function of critical success criteria grouping was defuzzified to
get the project success index for each critical success criteria grouping. Finally, a linear model
was devised by changing the project success index result of each critical success criteria
grouping into their normalization value. So, the study adopted the fuzzy scientific evaluation
model to determine the success of the studied projects. The main reason for the use of this
model is it overcomes the limitation of both the artificial network model (Mahdi et al, 2017)
and the Shahrzad and Hamidreza (2017) proposed model; and relevance in the context of the
study area.
2.3.An earned value analysis method

The earned value project management method is a powerful tool that enables to the
management of scope, time, and cost; and allows calculation of cost and schedule variance,
and performance indexes for early identification of expected project results to highlight the
possible need for corrective actions (Frank, 2003). Frank (2003) proposed the following
project performance measurement metrics.
 Cost variance (CV)=EV-AC
 Schedule variance (SV)=EV-PV
 Cost performance index (CPI)=EV/AC
 Schedule performance index (SPI)=EV/PV
 Critical ratio (CR) proposed by (Anberi & Lewis, as cited in Frank, 2003) =CPI*SPI

Where,
 Planned value (PV)- approved budget for accomplishing the activity, work package, or project
related to the schedule;
 Budget at completion (BAC)-the total baseline budget for the activity, work package, or project;
 Actual cost (AC)-the cumulative actual cost spent to a given point in time to accomplish an
activity, work package, or project;
 Earned value (EV)- the cumulative earned value for the work completed up to a point in time;

According to Frank (2003), the result of project performance metrics, and the formula is
interpreted as follows. If the SPI and CPI result is below 1, the project is said to be poorly
performing and has a problem of cost and time overrun. Similarly, if the critical ratio (CR) is
below 1, the project is said to be poorly performing, the reverse is true. So, the study adopts
earned value model to identify and examine good and poorly performing federal government
public building projects in terms of cost and time criterion.

3.Research methodology

The unit of analysis is the federal government public building construction projects in Addis
Ababa, Ethiopia. In the survey, only those projects whose actual implementation status is
above 50% are included. The study sample composed of key project stakeholders (contractors,
consultants, project managers, and project management team members) who have prior
experience or at list participated in one completed project; and awareness about the project
success criterion. To obtain data from respondents, the purposive sampling technique is used.
In addition, document review is conducted to obtain factual data in relation to the project
success criterion. A total of 78 questionnaires were collected from purposively selected
respondents, which constitute a response rate of 68.5%. A response rate of 50% and above is
adequate and acceptable for data analysis (Kothari, 2004). Thus, the response was sufficient
to proceed with the data analysis. The sample characteristics are presented in Table 3.1

Table 3.1. Sample characteristics

Education Respondents (%)
BA/BSc 52 66.7
MA/MSc 26 33.3
Work Experience
1-5 Years 9 11.5
6-10 Years 49 62.8
11-15 Years 20 25.6
Job Position
Construction Engineer Head 13 16.7
Office Engineer Head 16 20.5
Admin and Finance Head 9 11.5
Project Manager 7 9.0
Construction Manager 11 14.1
Senior Engineer 6 7.7
Consultant 9 11.5
Resident Engineer 7 9.0

3.1.Proposed project success measurement model

The study adopted the fuzzy synthetic evaluation model which is applied in public-private
partnership projects in Hong Kong by Osei-Kyei and Albert (2018) to determine and measure
the success of the federal government public building construction projects in Addis Ababa,
Ethiopia. The study adopted the following steps to propose and measure the success of the
studied projects.

Step1.Review literature and identify project success criteria: Through a detailed review of
literature in relation to the performance indicators or metrics of public building
construction projects, the study identified ten (10) projects success criterion: time, cost,
 quality, client satisfaction, project team satisfaction, safety and health, scope
management, business success, environmental impact, and communication.
Step2. Develop a fuzzy project success index
Step2.1. Questionnaire survey: To develop the success index, initially the survey
questionnaire is developed and distributed to 114 public building construction projects
key stakeholders (contractors, consultants, project managers, and project management
team members) who have awareness and close information about the project status and
success criterion in order to rate on a five-point Likert scale (1-not important to 5-
extremely important) the importance of each identified project success criterion. Thus,
from 114 respondents, 78 of them returned the questionnaire.
Step2.2. Selecting critical success criteria (CSC) and critical success criteria grouping
(CSCG): The mean score ranking is used to rank CSC as presented in table 3.1. Thus,
to determine and identify the CSC from the ten (10) project success criterion, the range
normalization method (NV) which is presented below is used.
NV = (Actual-largest value)/ (maximum – minimum value)
Table 3.2. Success criterion mean and normalization score
Normalization Result
Project success criterion Mean Value
Time 4.64 1 Selected
Communication 4.50 0.893 Selected
Client satisfaction 4.45 0.855 Selected
Budget/Cost 4.44 0.847 Selected
Scope creep 4.31 0.748 Selected
Safety and health 4.29 0.733 Selected
Quality 4.26 0.710 Selected
Project profitability 3.60 0.206 Rejected
Environmental impact 3.36 0.023 Rejected
Staff satisfaction 3.33 0 Rejected

Then, those success criteria whose normalized value is equal to or above 0.50 were considered
as critical success criteria (Osei-Kyei and Albert, 2018). Hence, as shown in Table 3.1,
except staff satisfaction, environmental impact, and project profitability whose
normalization value was below 0.50; the rest success criteria were incorporated into the
model.
Finally, the identified CSC are grouped into four groups based on their characteristics and
feature in a public construction project:
  CSCG1-efficiency and effectiveness (cost, time and client satisfaction),
 CSCG2-technical and functional specification (quality and scope creep),
 CSCG3- communication, and
 CSCG4- safety and health.
Step3. Apply the fuzzy synthetic evaluation model (FSEM) to formulate a project success
index (PSI) for public building construction projects. In order to develop the model, the
following sub-steps are followed.
Sup3.1. Determine the weighting score for each critical success criteria (CSC) and critical
success criteria grouping (CSCG) based on equation one (1). The result of CSC and
CSCG’s are presented in table 3.2.

Where Wi is weighting;
Mi. is the mean score of a particular criterion, and
∑Mi. is the summation of mean ratings.

Table 3.3. Weighting score for CSC and CSCG’s

Success criteria Mean for Weight. for Mean for Weight.
ID
CSC CSC CSCG For CSCG
CSC1 Time 4.64 0.343
CSC2 Cost 4.44 0.328
CSC3 Client satisfaction 4.45 0.329
CSCG1-Efficency and effectiveness 13.53 0.438
CSC4 Quality 4.26 0.497
CSC5 Scope creep 4.31 0.503
CSCG2-Technical and functional requirement 8.57 0.277
CSC6 Communication 4.50 1
CSCG3-Communication 4.50 0.146
CSC7 Safety and health 4.29 1
CSCG4-Safety and health 4.29 0.139
Total 30.89

Step3.2. Determine the membership function of each CSC and CSCG’s: The membership
functions are derived from critical success factor (level 2-CSC) into critical success
factor grouping (level 1-CSCG). The membership functions of level 2 are derived from
the rating furnished by key building construction projects stakeholders given the grades
 of selection (i.e. e1 = not important; e5 = extremely important) by changing the response
into an index. So, the membership is computed based on equation (2).

Membership function of CSCi = e1/n +e2/n + e3/n + e4/n + e5/n ……... (2)

Then, after deriving the membership function of level 2, the membership function of level 1
can be computed based on equation (3).
D = Wi0Ri ……………………………………………….…. (3)

Where, Wi is the weightings of all CSCs within each CSCGs and

Ri is the fuzzy evaluation matrix.
Table 3.4. Membership function of CSC’s and CSCG’s
ID Success Criteria Weighting Membership Function Level 2 Membership Function Level 1
for each (CSC’s) (CSCG’s)
CSC
CSC1 Time 0.343 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.28 0.68
CSC2 Cost 0.328 0.00 0.00 0.03 0.51 0.46
CSC3 Client 0.329 0.00 0.01 0.03 0.46 0.5
Satisfaction
CSCG1-Efficency and Effectiveness 0.00 0.00 0.03 0.42 0.55
CSC4 Quality 0.497 0.00 0.00 0.14 0.46 0.4
CSC5 Scope Creep 0.503 0.00 0.01 0.06 0.53 0.4
CSCG2-Technical and Functional Requirements 0.00 0.01 0.1 0.49 0.4
CSC6 Communication 1 0.00 0.01 0.03 0.41 0.55
CSCG3-Communication 0.00 0.01 0.03 0.41 0.55
CSC7 Safety & Health 1 0.00 0.00 0.06 0.58 0.36
CSCG4-Safety and Health 0.00 0.00 0.06 0.58 0.36

Step3.3. Defuzzify the membership function of CSCGs to aid in decision-making. Because, the
defuzzification of membership functions of the CSCGs produces the PSI for each
CSCG’s, which is then used to derive the overall PSI for federal government public
building construction projects. To defuzzify the membership functions of each CSCG,
equation four (4) is used.

Where e is the set of grade alternatives (i.e.1: not important; 5: extremely important) and
is the membership function of CSCG’s of fuzzy evaluation matrix result.
 So, the PSI (CSCG 1 up to 4) for the four critical success criteria grouping is computed by the
use of the above equation4.

PSI for CSCG1= (0.00, 0.00, 0.03, 0.42, 0.55) * (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) = 4.51
PSI for CSCG2= (0.00, 0.01, 0.10, 0.49, 0.40) * (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) = 4.28
PSI for CSCG3= (0.00, 0.01, 0.03, 0.41, 0.55) * (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) = 4.50
PSI for CSCG4= (0.00, 0.00, 0.06, 0.58, 0.36) * (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) =4.29
Step4.The final step is to develop the overall project success index (PSI) for the federal
government public building construction project in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Thus, before
the overall project success index was developed, the PSI score of each CSCGs is
normalized using the following equation.
[[

NC= PSI for each CSCG/ ∑ of PSI for all CSCG……. (5)

Table 3.6. Normalized coefficients of CSCG’s

ID Critical success groups PSI of each CSCG’s Coefficients
CSCG1 Efficiency and effectiveness 4.51 0.2565
CSCG2 Technical and functional requirement 4.28 0.2435
CSCG3 Communication 4.5 0.2563
CSCG4 Safety and health 4.29 0.2442
Total 17.59 1

Then, the overall Project Success index is measured and determined using the following equation,
which is used to measure the success of the studied projects.

PSI=0.2565*CSCG1+0.2435*CSCG2+0.2563*CSCG3+ 0.2442*CSCG4………. (6)

Finally, the overall PSI result is interpreted as follows:
 If the overall PSI value =1, the project is failed;
 If the overall PSI=2, the project is slightly successful;
 If the overall PSI=3, the project is moderately successful;
 If the overall PSI=4, the project is successful;
 If the overall PSI=5, the project is highly successful;
4. Application of proposed project success measurement model and earned value
method
The success of the federal government public building construction projects is measured and
determined by the use of the below equation.

PSI= 0.2565*CSCG1 + 0.2435* CSCG2 + 0.256e*CSCG3+ 0.2442*CSC

Where:
● PSI-Overall project success index
● CSCG1-project efficiency and effectiveness measurement group, which contains the time, cost
and client satisfaction criterion;
● CSCG2-project technical and functional requirement measurement group, which contains quality
and scope creep;
● CSCG3-project communication failure measurement group, it only contains communication criteria;
● CSCG4-project safety and health measurement group, which only contains safety and health criteria;
The result of the success rate of studied projects is presented in table 4.1 and figure 4.1.
 Table 4.1. The overall project success index (PSI) of federal government public building construction projects

Critical success criteria groupings

Group1 Group2 Group3 Group4 Overall
Project
Name of studied projects Client Success
PSI- Qualit Scope Aver PSI Index
Time Cost Satisfac Average PSI-2 Comm. Safety
1 y Creep age -3 (PSI)
tion and
health PSI-4

Commercial Bank of Ethiopia Head Office Building Project

3.75 5.00 4.50 4.42 1.13 4.75 4.50 4.63 1.13 4.25 1.09 4.50 1.10 4.45

Central Statistical Agency Building Project

1.67 1.67 2.00 1.78 0.46 2.83 3.17 3.00 0.73 1.83 0.47 3.00 0.73 2.39
Minister of Foreign Affairs Parking and Site Work Building
Project 3.00 2.83 3.67 3.17 0.81 4.17 3.67 3.92 0.95 3.00 0.77 3.50 0.85 3.39
Addis Ababa University Forum Building Project
3.00 2.56 3.00 2.85 0.73 3.11 3.89 3.50 0.85 3.22 0.83 3.56 0.87 3.28
Minister of Foreign Affairs Conference Hall Building Project 1.40 1.60 2.40 1.80 0.46 2.80 2.80 2.80 0.68 2.00 0.51 2.80 0.68 2.34
Road Research Center 1.88 2.25 2.38 2.17 0.56 4.25 4.00 4.13 1.00 3.75 0.96 3.88 0.95 3.47
Ethiopian Shipping & Logistics Services Enterprise
Multipurpose Building Project 2.29 2.29 2.29 2.29 0.59 3.71 3.29 3.50 0.85 2.43 0.62 3.14 0.77 2.83
Governmental Higher Officials Residential Building Project
1.89 1.89 1.89 1.89 0.48 2.78 2.89 2.84 0.69 2.11 0.54 2.33 0.57 2.29
Federal Communication Affairs Head Office Building
Project 1.50 1.63 1.75 1.63 0.42 2.63 2.88 2.76 0.67 2.00 0.51 2.88 0.70 2.30
Federal Judges Residential Apartments Building Project 2.14 2.57 2.86 2.52 0.65 4.00 4.29 4.15 1.01 3.14 0.81 3.88 0.95 3.41
Tikur Anbessa Emergency Medicine Unit Building Project
2.56 2.33 2.44 2.44 0.63 4.00 3.56 3.78 0.92 3.11 0.80 3.44 0.84 3.18
Figure 4.1. The Success of the federal government public building construction projects

5 4.45

3.28 3.47 3.41

4 2.39 3.39 3.18
2.34 2.83
2.30
3 2.29

According to the table and figure 4.1, from the total studied projects, 1 (9%), 6 (54.5%), and
4 (36.3%) are showed highly, moderately, and slightly successful respectively. Averagely, the
studied projects showed a moderately successful (average-3.03) performance. Generally, from
the studied projects, 10 out of 11 or 91% showed slightly and moderately successful
performance.

4.1.Measuring the success of studied projects by the use of earned value method

The study sought to measure the success of studied projects based on cost and time
performance by the use of the earned value method. The study adopted Frank (2003) earned
value extension method. (See table 4.2. and figure 4.2-3)
 Table 4.2. Projects success in terms of cost and time performance
Cost Schedule
Planned Earned Schedule Performa Perform Critical
Cost Variance
Public Building Projects Value Value Actual Cost Variance nce ance Ratio
Index Index (SPI*CPI)

Commercial Bank of Ethiopia Head Office Building

Project 241,794,655 257,914,299 180,384,690 16,119,644 77,529,609 1.43 1.07 1.53
Central Statistics Agency HO Building Project 23,652,160 18,921,728 22,469,552 -4,730,432 -3,547,824 0.84 0.80 0.67
Ministry of Foreign Affairs Parking and Site Work
105,360,738
Building Project 94,824,664 102,199,916 -10,536,074 -7,375,252 0.93 0.90 0.84
Addis Ababa University Forum Building Project 976,456,706 488,228,353 266,481,247 -488,228,353 221,747,106 1.83 0.50 0.92
Ministry of Foreign Affairs Conference Hall Building
Project 162,609,262 159,357,077 220,489,408 -3,252,185 -61,132,331 0.72 0.98 0.71
ESLSE Multipurpose Building Project 431,408,341 286,780,524 314,272,484 -144,627,818 -27,491,960 0.91 0.66 0.61
Government Higher Officials Residential Building
Project 232,032,879 179,789,844 199,548,276 -52,243,035 -19,758,432 0.90 0.77 0.70
Federal Communication Head Office Building Project 1,049,735,394 253,762,102 403,982,381 -795,973,292 -150,220,280 0.63 0.24 0.15
Federal Judges Residential Apartments Building Project 809,674,171 523,765,894 555,423,062 -285,908,278 -31,657,168 0.94 0.65 0.61
Tikur Anbessa Emergency Medicine Unit Building
Project 222,517,654 140,486,423 158,108,595 -82,031,231 -17,622,172 0.89 0.63 0.56

Aggregate Performance
425,524,196 240,383,091 242,335,961 -185,141,105 -1,952,870 1.0 0.72 0.73
 Figure 4.2. Projects performance (Cost and time criterion)

2.00 1.83
1.80 1.43 Under budget and ahead of schedule performance
1.60 1.07
0.90 0.90
1.40 0.84 0.98 0.91 0.94 0.89
1.20 0.80 0.93 0.77
1.00
1.00
0.80 0.72
0.65 0.72
0.66 0.63 0.63
0.60 0.50
0.40 0.24
Over budget and behind schedule performance
0.20
-

Cost Performance Index Schedule Performance Index

Figure 4.3. Projects success performance (CR-Critical ratio indicator)

Aggregate Performance

Tikur Anbessa Emergency Medicine Unit Building Project

CR<1, Poor Performance

Federal Judges Residential Apartments Building Project CR>1, Good Performance

Federal Communication Head Office Building Project

Government Higher Officials Residential Building Project

ESLSE Multipurpose Building Project

Ministry of Foreign Affairs Conference Hall Building Project

Addis Ababa University Forum Building Project

Ministry of Foreign Affairs Parking and Site Work Building Project

Central Statistics Agency HO Building Project

Commercial Bank of Ethiopia Head Office Building Project

-0.1 0.1 0.3 0.5 0.7 0.9 1.1 1.3 1.5

The earned value analysis result revealed that from the studied projects 7 (63.6%) and 8
(72.7%) of them showed poor or inefficient performance in terms of cost and schedule
respectively. The result also indicates that from the studied projects 8 (80%) and 9 (90%) of
them were accomplished in over budget and behind schedule. Averagely, she schedules and
cost variance were birr (-237,301,250) and (-10,227,848) respectively. Generally, from the
studied projects, 9 out of 10 showed a poor performance both in time and cost criterion.

5. Conclusion
This paper proposed a project success measurement model by adopting fuzzy scientific
evaluation model for measuring the success of the public building construction projects. The
model used four success measurement grouping (group1-efficiency and effectiveness, group2-
technical and functional requirements, group3-communication and group4-safety and health),
and seven critical success criteria: time, cost, communication, client satisfaction, quality, scope
creep, and safety and health. To propose the model a structured questionnaire was distributed
to collect data from key project stakeholders that have high interest and influence on the success
of public building construction projects. The proposed model was applied to 11 federal
government public building construction projects to demonstrate how it is applied and reveal
the significance of the model. Thus, by the use of the proposed model, the success of the studied
projects was measured; 6 out of 11 or 54.5% and 4 out of 11 or 36% showed moderately and
slightly successful performance.

The earned value method is used to measure the performance of the studied projects, and to
compare with the output of the proposed project success measurement model in order to
validate the proposed model. Thus, by comparing the result of the proposed model (10 out of
11 projects showed slightly and moderately successful performance) with earned value method
(9 out of 10 projects showed poorly successful performance) the significance of the model is
validated and ensured. So, the output of the proposed model and the earned value method is
almost the same.

The output of this study is used to measure and determine the success rate of public and private
construction projects in terms of to time, cost, quality, client satisfaction, safety and health,
scope creep and communication criterion; and identify key failure or improvement areas and
proactively take continual improvement actions on failure areas. So, by adopting this model,
the key project stakeholders will enhance the performance of their respective projects by
measuring and identifying key improvement areas, devising and implementing continual
improvement actions, and monitoring and controlling the success of actions taken. In addition,
the output of this study is used to narrow the empirical gap on the adoption and consistent use
of the project success measurement model.
The proposed model is developed for measuring the success of federal government public
building construction projects; but, it could be developed and used to measure the success of
other public construction projects, and private and non-governmental organizations financed
construction projects. On the other hand, the model could be developed to measure the success
of other sectors projects by following the steps applied in the development and application of
the model in this paper.
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