A construction project is inherently complex, involving numerous stakeholders, lengthy timelines, and intricate relationships, leading to significant risk potential. The increased complexity of construction projects and the fact that a large percentage of projects are still delivered with significant delays and cost overruns has led to the necessity of applying different methods by the project managers and the teams. Agile project management is an example of that as its implementation in construction projects can help increase flexibility, achieve continuous improvement, help the project stay on track without schedule overruns and achieve an overall improved quality through effective collaboration and constant feedback. Despite agile project management's flexibility and continuous improvement benefits, its integration with risk management remains underexplored in the construction industry.

The objective of this study is to propose a framework that could help improve the risk management project by offering a more proactive approach and at the same time enhance people’s engagement with risks. The goal of this thesis project is to support construction companies in approaching risk management in a way that incorporates agile methods.

Implemented in a project and evaluated through questionnaires and a focus group, the framework showed promise in elevating risk awareness and fostering interdisciplinary collaboration. However, incomplete implementation of some elements limited definitive effectiveness assessments. Subsequent expert judgment sessions confirmed the framework's potential in proactive risk identification and management, alongside the initial findings of heightened awareness and collaboration. Recommendations for improvement include clearer risk impact depiction and explicit framework objectives communication. Essential for success are targeted risk training, clear vision articulation, and structured step-by-step implementation supported by project managers and risk coordinators.

In summary, the proposed framework merges agile principles with risk management, aiming to cultivate a proactive risk culture, enhance team communication, and mitigate increase engagement with risks. While showing significant benefits, it also highlights the need for adjustments to fully realize its effectiveness in the construction industry's risk management practices. This study underscores the importance of agile methodologies in enhancing traditional risk management approaches, offering insights for future application and refinement.

Nowadays, construction projects face cost overruns and delays on a regular basis, not being able to achieve the success standards expected. This is widely attributed to the fast changing and dynamic environment of construction projects. It is argued that the project management mostly used has a traditional and conservative approach which is incapable of dealing with contemporary projects and its constant changes, creating a growing need amidst practitioners to employ a flexible approach. Within the changes arising in projects the type being accredited as the one with most significant impact is design change. Thus, the purpose of this project will be to provide an insight on how the implementation of flexibility in project planning helps manage design change causes.

Firstly, a qualitative research will be carried out to create a theoretical framework and answer the first three research sub-questions. Firstly, an extensive literature review is conducted to gather information on flexibility in project management and planning, and changes in construction projects. Following, exploratory interviews with DPR’s practitioners is performed to complement the findings in the available literature. As a result of this first step the causes of design changes in projects will be established, as well as the different flexibility recourses to be used in the planning of projects. These two will act as the input for the next step.

Secondly, a quantitative research will be conducted to analyze the relationship between the causes of design change and the flexibility recourses already established. These two will act as two sets of variables and a correlation analysis will be performed. For this to be possible, the causes of design change and flexibility recourses are translated into statements and assessed by the use of a survey. In total 115 responses were used for the correlation analysis.

Furthermore, from this correlation analysis 10 significant correlations were found which were comprised by 3 flexibility recourses. As well, some open questions in the survey introduced the mindset of respondents about flexibility and its practices. From all this, two main conclusions were established.

The first one is that the use of the flexibility recourse “cross functional and multi-disciplinary teams” helps to reduce the appearance of design change causes in projects. It is recommended to explore the different ways in which this recourse can be used and improve. In the Implementation Roadmap are some suggestions that can be implemented in a practical way. This flexibility recourse used in the planning helps managing design changes in construction projects by reducing their appearance. The second one is that the use of the flexibility recourse “incremental planning” and “continuous locking” does not help reduce the appearance of design change causes in projects but evokes them. However, the possibility of using these recourses to manage the design changes once they arise in projects is still viable. This flexibility recourse used in planning helps in managing design changes as a reactive measure.

The construction industry is shifting towards a more collaborative environment through relational contracts following the early contractor involvement approach. In the Netherlands, one of them is the bouwteam process. The peak of collaboration in bouwteam projects and the construction industry is during the pre-construction phases since there is a higher complexity due to the uncertainty and interdependence of elements. On the other hand, technology innovations opened the way to work across boundaries in a remote way, which is known as virtual teams. Taking both aspects into account, the importance of collaboration through relational contracts and the technological innovations, this research seeks to seize the opportunity to expand the traditional working scope into a virtual or hybrid one in a way that doesn’t jeopardize the performance of projects but rather improves it. Based on the problem definition and objective of the present research, a main research question is defined: How focusing on collaboration improves virtual teams in the bouwteam phase?

Due to the dynamic and complex nature of the construction industry, it is evident that the integration of processes and groups is more challenging to attain in comparison to other industries (Demirkesen & Ozorhon,2017). Therefore, there is a call for better integration of project participants and processes in construction projects (Franz et al., 2017). Consequently, organisational collaboration and integration are often considered inefficient and dependent on individuals. This inefficiency can be caused by individuals not making the right connections to gain access or obtain relevant data for the decision making process. This can be explained by the fact that the industry is renowned for its fragmentation and temporary project teams Whitley, 2006). Due to this fragmentation, it is not uncommon for parties to have their own internal silos. These internal silos contain different sorts of data and have limited connections within their own or with other project teams, resulting in bad data sharing and communication. The presence of data silos and limited data sharing affects risk awareness as this can cause unavailability of data or subjective biases in the decision-making process. As a result, the employees that make the decisions are not (completely) aware of the involved risks, which can give the impression of soundly under-supported choices (van der Meer, 2021). By utilising data sharing and ensuring the proper coordination and communication, one could take on the silo’s created by this fragmentation between and in project teams, and by doing so, one could expect to reduce the detrimental effects on risk awareness. Especially when firms are active in a multinational environment, research has shown that connections between people that cross physical boundaries can enhance opportunities to improve performance and improve entry to information (DeSanctis & Monge, 1999). That is why, one could argue that data sharing could contribute significantly to risk awareness among team members. To investigate this, the following research question has been formulated: How does data sharing in intra-organisational project networks contribute to risk awareness in the tender phase?

Effective planning and control are crucial for the successful delivery of engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) projects, which are characterized by complex organizational structures, interdependent activities, overlapping phases, and a large number of disciplines and participants. However, project uncertainty, including the lack of complete information and frequent changes, can lead to delays and cost overruns if not effectively managed. In this research, an integrated planning and control approach for EPC projects that addresses these challenges by combining the Last Planner System of Lean Construction and the Scrum framework of Agile Management is developed. Through a literature review and a case study of an EPC industrial construction project, six requirements for effective planning and control and mechanisms for their implementation are identified. The approach is evaluated through interviews with industry experts. The results highlight the importance of both structured planning and control for identifiable and predictable uncertainties, and flexibility and agility for unforeseen uncertainties, in managing project uncertainty in EPC projects.

This study addresses the need for greater flexibility in project scope to match the dynamic lifecycle and complexities of modern projects. Traditional, rigid project management processes struggle to accommodate changing circumstances and diverse stakeholder expectations, especially in long or complex endeavors. The problem statement centers on the front-end scope: it is often tightly framed, limiting the ability to adjust or implement feasible changes.

Grounded in Jalai Sohi (2018), the research identifies 13 enablers and strategies for flexible scope, with a strong emphasis on soft factors such as trust, stakeholder involvement, communication, collaboration, commitment, and managerial review; an additional enabler—interaction among stakeholders—is incorporated. Three enablers were selected for deeper investigation: broad task definition, embrace change, and interaction among stakeholders. Barriers to implementing these enablers were categorized as limited awareness, stakeholder-driven barriers, organizational behavior, and contractual barriers, informing the development of a practical framework.

Value Engineering (VE) is examined as a complementary approach. VE is a structured process aimed at achieving essential functions at the lowest life-cycle cost while increasing project value, extending beyond mere cost cutting. Although evidence for VE in construction remains limited, the study identifies 21 potential benefits and validates them via a practitioner survey (n=25), with all benefits scoring a Relative Importance Index above 0.6.

Two case studies illustrate VE and enabler implementation. In Case 1, VE was introduced after scope development, leading to stakeholder resistance; in Case 2, VE was used proactively from the outset, yielding earlier consensus and fewer barriers. The most common barrier observed is lack of trust. A framework is proposed to resolve barriers by spreading awareness of enablers, ensuring stakeholder engagement, and conducting VE, supported by expert analysis. The findings suggest VE and soft-factor enablers can enhance scope flexibility, though broader empirical validation is recommended.

Even after many developments in project management tools and techniques, there is still a loophole in the traditional approaches, due to which it is no longer effective for managing projects in a dynamic environment. As a result, there is a rising urge amongst the practitioners to implement flexible approaches in large complex projects for its successful completion. However, there is a lack of practical recommendations on how to add flexibility into practice in the construction industry. Thus, the objective of this research is to contribute to the knowledge of flexible project management in the construction industry by identifying the flexibility enablers that can be incorporated in practice, investigating the barriers in its incorporation and providing practical recommendations to overcome them.In this research, five flexibility enablers- iterative planning, iterative delivery, short feedback loops, late locking and continuous locking, have been analyzed and investigated for its application in the infrastructure and healthcare real-estate projects. A case study methodology was adopted to conduct this research. Further, this research has identified 30 barriers that occur in the identification and implementation of flexibility enablers. These barriers were mainly classified into five clusters- Lack of awareness/methodologies, Change resistance, Organizational behaviour, Management processes and Miscellaneous. The research findings suggest the five enablers are not well-established in the construction industry, and there are not many methods available to incorporate these enablers. As a result, it lacks recognition and incorporation in practice. One of the main findings of the research is: planning-based enablers (iterative planning & iterative delivery) are more preferred in the infrastructure sector, while decision-based enablers (late locking & continuous locking) are more preferred in healthcare real-estate sector. Most of the barriers in implementing the enablers occurred as a result of lack of awareness and methods to implement them as well as resistance to change to a new and flexible way of working from the traditional approaches.In order to stimulate the incorporation of flexibility enablers and make them explicit, it is necessary to overcome the barriers that occur in its implementation. This research has proposed a conceptual framework following a linear step-by-step approach of creating awareness, providing insights, encouraging teams and implement these enablers, and further proposed suggestions to overcome the most commonly identified barriers. As the main idea behind stimulating flexibility by incorporating flexibility enablers was to identify and overcome the barriers that occur in its incorporation, hence adopting the proposed framework helps in achieving flexibility in construction project management.

'Construction Knowledge' is the requisite knowledge for effective and efficient construction and its use in project processes across project lifecycle for better constructability is 'Construction Knowledge Integration (CKI)'. Past researches show that there is limited integration of construction knowledge in preparation stages of the project since these are carried out by different project teams. Hence, limited integration of construction knowledge in the realm of 'Offshore Wind' projects is the main problem being addressed in this research and optimizing it is the primary objective. The scope of this research is limited to optimizing CKI in the engineering & management processes of foundations in OW projects as these remain a major 'Balance of Plant' component executed by the primary contractor. This research gathered its data through desk research (literature study) and case studies of three ongoing OW projects. The former was aimed at finding the key concepts related to CKI which support its optimization. Literature study confirmed the importance of CKI in early stages, integrating construction knowledge from a mix of relevant sources and practices. The case study was aimed at finding the existing regime of CKI in OW projects and the key issues which hinder CKI. Case data was mainly gathered through 12 semi structured interviews of project staff. It revealed that the current regime was highly informal, with high reliance on use of lessons learned data and limited integration of knowledge from fabrication, installation and past/ongoing projects. The key issues hindering CKI were found to be lack of standard protocol for knowledge integration activities and lack of integrated knowledge database which hindered knowledge retrieval, sharing and creation. The recommendations were devised for all issues that had a causal or correlational linkage with the two key issues, where the main outline was to formalize knowledge integration efforts and recommend an essential setting for an integrated knowledge database. These recommendations also address the missing link to essential knowledge sources in the current regime. Complementing the detailed recommendations to each specific issue, this research recommends the offshore wind sector to formalize CKI efforts using a mix of tools and practices, focus on integrating relevant sources of knowledge, specially fabrication knowledge and realize and share the importance of construction knowledge integration in projects.

The current construction market is segregated, under-performs and becomes more complex. Often leaving the client helpless when projects go wrong. Consortia arise to handle the complexity and segregation, while improved collaboration between contractors can raise performance, but do consortia solve these problems? This research examines whether consortia affect the collaboration between contractors and if the client can influence this collaboration. Therefore, research objective is: ”Improving collaboration in construction consortia in the Netherlands by gaining insight in (different client and contractor related) factors, which influence unanticipated key moments”. The research question that is answered to reach the research objective is ”How does the client’s influence, on decision-making by contractors in key moments, differ when working with a consortium instead of a main contractor with subcontractor?” The research considered three factors and five hypotheses that have been derived from literature. The factors are expected to be influential for collaboration, be- ing: management style, relational capability and contractual context. All include more specific, measurable sub-factors. The hypotheses are expected consequences of working with a consortium and relate to collaboration between contractors and to the involvement of the client. The influence of the client on the factors has been assessed, as has the factors’ influence on collaboration. This is done in four Dutch construction projects, using a combination of semi-structured interviews and sur- veys. Two of the projects are consortia and two are executed main contractor – sub-contractors (MC-SCs). Collaboration is examined using an ’unanticipated key moment’-approach, where two unexpected decision (during execution) were analysed. The decision-making process is traced to find which factors were of influence in which project and whether the client had an influence on them. The influences have been gathered and combined per case to conclude which factors influence decision-making and whether the client has an influence on this. The findings were then compared cross-case to draw better founded conclusions and to find what is affected by working in a consortium. This includes confirming or rejecting the hypotheses. As a last step, the results are validated using an expert panel of tender and contract managers from the client’s side. The research found that, though all factors influenced decision-making, the client’s influence was limited. Relational capability has the highest influence on decision- making and the client has the most influence through the contractual context (i.e. incentives and contract type), the broadening of solution space and improving the contractor’s higher management commitment. Though, the differences between MC-SCs and consortia were small for the factors, the hypotheses gave more insight in the differences. Working with a consortium does not improve the relation between contractors, neither does it improve goal alignment or reduces negative impact of conflicts. Working with a consortium does reduce the influence of the client on decision-making. Knowing that working with a consortium reduces the client’s influence and knowing that the contractual context, broadening of solution space and improving higher management commitment are possibilities for the client to influence decision-making, it is recommend to the client to use a combination of these if a larger influence is wanted. Above all, even though consortia are sometimes seen as a remedy against segregation, they are definitely not a guarantee for good collaboration and integration.

The implementation of Agile Management in the construction industry is still incipient. Literature in the subject is scarce and further, is yet not conclusive about the performance of these methodologies for managing construction projects. This thesis aims at developing a framework to implement agile methods for managing the front-end phase of infrastructure projects, with the purpose of enhancing their performance. This framework will be the outcome of solving the main research question: How can Agile project management improve the performance of infrastructure projects in early phases?

“Successful project teams lead to more successful projects” (B. N. Baker, Murphy, & Fisher, 2008) and better collaboration within project teams lead to more successful projects (Hoegl & Gemuenden, 2001). Hence, proper collaboration within project teams is of high importance to the successful outcome of a project. However, in a considerable number of projects in the engineering industry, collaboration is not optimal. Communication and knowledge sharing are both aspects of collaboration that often lack in teams in the engineering industry (Humpfrey, Ma, Qi, & Wang, 2008). This leads to unbalanced team dynamics and demotivated project team members. Moreover, in complicated and innovative projects, project complexity often makes it challenging to precisely determine the outcome of a project. Clients assume to know upfront what they require, however, along with growth and innovation within the design, the clients often adapt their expectations and thereby requirements with it. Adapting these requirements during later stages of traditionally managed projects often leads to budget overruns, time delays and reduced productivity of the employees (Ibbs, 2012). These problems can be partially attributed to the characteristic of traditional project management of freezing the requirements at the start of the project. This management methodology is not designed to unfreeze and adapt the requirements at later stages. Abovementioned problems of collaboration and requirements management have led to the introduction of agile project management (APM) in the software development industry (AgileAlliance, 2001). APM aims at value creation rather than freezing project design at early stages and by means of better communication, collaboration is improved as well.

‘Agile1’ or ‘Agility’ currently is a popular expression within project management. Agile project management is a method to meet the ever-changing needs and requirements throughout a project. An agile approach requires small multi-disciplinary development teams, working iteratively and in close collaboration with the client. This project management approach is developed in the information technology (IT) industry in the 1990’s. Since then, agile gets more and more attention from different industries; the construction industry is no exception. More and more guidelines and tools appear in literature to manage projects in an agile manner. Yet, contractual guidelines suited for an agile approach in construction industry are currently missing. Ample research has been conducted on contracts for projects that use conventional project management, like the ‘waterfall approach’. But due to a different management style, agile project management may not be compatible with these existing construction contracts. This gap in knowledge resulted in the following research question. How to effectively enable agile project management through construction contracts? The scope of this research is the front-end development phase of construction projects between client – engineer, consultant or architect (hereafter referred to as supplier). The following activities were conducted to find an answer to the research question: literature review, exploratory interviews, development of an agile contract proposal, validation and synthesis of the findings.

Project scope is the work that must be accomplished to produce a deliverable with specified features and functions. The deliverable can be a product, service or other result (Kerzner & Saladis, 2010). A project scope with clearly defined goals and objectives has been verified as a dimension for project success by some researchers. Furthermore, projects often seem to grow naturally as the project progresses from inception through design development to construction (Jennifer S. Shane, 2009). Observations from literature and practice show that poor scope management and control is the leading cause of project failure. O. Hussain, (2012) states that scope creep is one of the leading causes of project failure globally according to the 2010 Global Survey...