for Target Cost Contracts in Construction: A Delphi Study - PolyU ...

Construction Law Journal (CLJ)
(Final Accepted Manuscript), Volume 28, Issue 8, November 2012, Pages 590-613
understanding about the TCC/GMP underlying principles and extensive hands-on experience
in the construction industry. So the following criteria were devised to identify the eligible
expert panel for this Delphi survey. Only those practitioners who fulfilled all of these three
criteria were invited to participate in this Delphi survey, with the purpose of soliciting the most
representative and reliable opinions from them.
1. Participants should have acquired extensive working experience of at least ten years in
the construction industry of Hong Kong.
2. Participants should have been engaged, or participated in the management of at least
one TCC/GMP construction project in Hong Kong.
3. Participants should hold a position of at least a professional grade in the TCC/GMP
projects concerned with a sound understanding of TCC/GMP schemes or principles (e.g.
project manager, project architect, project design engineer, project quantity surveyor, etc).
Results of Delphi survey
Round 1: Identifying the most important KPIs
The questionnaire of Round 1 was developed on the basis of an extensive review of desktop
literature on various generic performance measures for construction projects in general (e.g.
time performance, or cost performance), followed by a series of pilot interviews with some
senior industrial practitioners involved in TCC/GMP construction projects in particular (e.g.
trust and respect, or claim occurrence) for verifying the validity of those KPIs sought. The
questionnaire together with an invitation letter, which explained the purpose of the research,
were dispatched to the 72 “eligible” potential respondents via postal mail, as identified from
previous research studies on TCC/GMP in Hong Kong 94, 95 , in March 2011. The experts were
informed of a total of four rounds of questionnaire survey to be conducted within the next few
months. A total of sixteen practitioners ultimately confirmed to participate in this study. The
sixteen members of the expert panel represented a wide spectrum of construction
professionals: three from client organisations, ten from contractor companies and three from
consultant firms. The composition of the expert panel provided a holistic, balanced view for
this Delphi study. Table 2 serves as a summary of their personal profiles.
94 Same as 16
95 Same as 78
16