Project success and critical success factors of construction projects: project practitioners’ perspectives

Abstract Project management is primarily practitioner-oriented and loaded with many critical success factors (CSFs), and although these are well-evidenced in theory, they do not deliver as efficiently as factors of interest to project professionals during execution. The present study explores the perceptions of senior project managers (PMs) about project success, CSFs and complexity in large construction projects. Data from project practitioners were collected through semi-structured interviews and analysed using content analysis. The participants were selected with convenience sampling method given the complex understanding of the domain and included highly experienced PMs from the global community with expertise in project management. PMs perceive a small number of CSFs in contrast to the large exhaustive CSFs listed in the questionnaire surveys. Though important, traditional constraints of the Iron Triangle are considered inadequate in defining project success. Project professionals are seen as relying more on other performance indicators for defining a project as a success. They perceive complex construction projects in terms of a large number of interfaces, complex working systems and uncertainty. The findings of this paper suggest that project practitioners perceive differently about the CSFs and project success.