Proactive Project Change-Prediction Tool

Changes to construction projects present tough and controversial issues. Change is one of the primary reasons for schedule delays and cost overruns, which create negative impacts on project performance and profitability. The liability of change and its consequences are major sources of disagreements between project participants, which often lead to disputes or claims. More research needs to be done on predicting project change and proactive change-management decision-making. This study addresses this important need and develops and tests a proactive change-predictive tool based on empirical formulation. This tool helps industry professionals predict potential change to their projects and benchmark their change performance against a large set of projects. With this tool, better change management will result and the cost effectiveness of the construction industry will be improved. (C) 2015 American Society of Civil Engineers.