Decision‐Making Roles in Project Planning

Abstract

This paper presents the little‐known process of project planning from the owner's point of view in the form of a descriptive study of decision‐making processes. Data were assembled from interviews held in 11 leading U.S. companies. Two stages of project planning are investigated: the conceptual and the design stage. These stages are each divided into three functional plans: project definition, organization and systems, and schedule. The analysis of the data was made by type of industry: petrochemical, office and high technology, chemical and manufacturing, power generation. The study comes to the principal conclusion that the role played by the primary parties in decision making depends, to a decisive degree, on the stage settings of the project, the area of planning, and the type of industry. A better insight of the early stages of project planning and organization is gained from the conclusions. This study may be a starting point for the pursuit of further research dedicated to the improvement of the process of project planning.