BUS605: Strategic Project Management

The problems in construction are confronted especially during the project definition phase, which defines the project's purposes to meet the stakeholders' and project's needs. The project definition answers the question "what," and the process contains three stages: determining project purposes, translating those purposes into criteria for assessing alternative designs or solutions, and generating alternative design concepts. This research concentrates on the first stage.

The project definition phase process in RPDM is a multistage process, with seven separate stages: (1) feasibility, (2) initiation, (3) procurement strategy, (4) request for proposals, (5) evaluation and selection of suppliers, (6) negotiating an agreement, and (7) finalizing the agreement. The process is illustrated in Figure 3. This process complies with the theory and project definition process that are familiar from the IPD and project alliancing methods.

Figure 3 An overview of the RPDM project definition process.

The project definition phase contains two major phases; the first five stages form the first phase and the last two stages form the second one. The first phase is primarily managed and steered by the customer, while the second phase is performed along with the other selected project stakeholders, such as the designers and contractors. Although the phases are steered by the customer and the major stakeholders, there are many other stakeholders that should be involved in the different phases of the project's definition.