Abstract/Summary

Managing time in work or complex projects that involve multiple organisations and professionals is challenging. This is particularly visible when it comes to delay incidents. One tool frequently used to manage time is a programme. Most research into programmes focuses on the relationship between time-related variables and performance. A second literature considers the role of programmes in coordinating the work of multiple groups, but much of this is quite superficial. This thesis extends that work by exploring how a programme in the everyday coordination of project team members around delay incidents. A boundary object approach is used to explore a London case in which multiple programmes are used extensively and two Southeast cases with limited engagement with a programme. The contrast offers insights into differences in the formality and extent of engagement in the construction and management of delays. Data was obtained using observations, interviews, and documents. The results highlight six ways in which different project groups engaged with programmes. First, it shows that different project groups constructed time differently (linearly or cyclically) in designing programmes and organising work. This led to the multiplication or reproduction of the initial programme, with each version adjusted to the needs and interests of specific groups. These multiple versions served by mediating the relationship between different project groups and were reconciled through project group meetings and discussions. Second, the research found that the mode of engaging with a programme (formal or informal) varied across the three cases. In the London case, project groups used versions of the programme formally at six different types of meetings, including: progress meetings, labour forecast meetings, progress review meetings, programme revision meetings, internal supplier meetings and joint inspection meetings. In the Southeast cases, project groups engaged informally with programmes with quick verbal exchanges. Third, the three case projects demonstrated different uses of the programme at different moments. Uses included: to distribute task and responsibilities at multiple levels, to manage project resources at multiple levels, to manage the expectations of project groups, to support firms to negotiate their interests, to capture knowledge of activities and agreements at multiple levels and to communicate the progress of work in percentages at multiple levels. The way project groups used a programme in delay incidents depended on the context and were responses that usually involved avoiding financial losses of placing or not placing workers, materials, or equipment to work. Fourth, the case projects demonstrated that project groups used programmes to socially construct delays. In the London case, project groups used programmes to construct delays as concrete and visible by recording negative slip values and positioning a drop line on the programme. In contrast, project groups in the Southeast cases treated delays informally and did not record them on the programme, thereby rendering them invisible or abstract. Fifth, the case projects demonstrated that project groups responded to visible and invisible delays differently. In the London case, project groups responded to visible delays with negotiations around the formal extension of deadlines, leading to a reconstruction of slip values on the public or construction programme. They also responded to delay incidents with a mutual accommodation of the work and programme. In the Southeast cases, project groups responded to abstract or invisible delays with negotiations that extended the project duration, without any formal recording of specific delays. The three case projects showed that it is only after project members used a programme to count or interpret and then label the progress of a project as delayed, that they began to treat or view the project as delayed. Sixth, the case projects showed that the programme played different roles in different delay incidents. In the London case, project groups used versions of programme in three ways: to halt the position of a drop line on the construction or public programme instead of moving it to a current date, to skip with the drop line periods that were unproductive and to develop a mapping of slip values as delays at multiple levels (zones, subzones, and areas). In contrast, project groups in the Southeast case used versions of the programme to discuss delays and issue early warning notifications. Delay incidents led project groups to adjust initial forms of organising with a changing understanding of a programme when programmes move between groups. On the basis of these findings, this research argues that the multiplication of a programme into different versions and the modes of engagement enabled different project groups in different contexts to develop realistic responses to deadlines. The contrast between the London and Southeast cases suggests that project groups use programmes informally when they have a history of working together. However, in situations where project groups have no prior business relationship or distrust each other, they engage more formally with a programme to penalise firms that breach contractual agreements.