title: Understanding programme use and delays in construction projects: A boundary object approach
Creators: name: Olubajo, Oluseun
Publisher: name: University of Reading
Year: 2022

description: Managing time in work or complex projects that involve multiple organisations and professionals 
is challenging. This is particularly visible when it comes to delay incidents. One tool frequently 
used to manage time is a programme. Most research into programmes focuses on the relationship
between time-related variables and performance. A second literature considers the role of 
programmes in coordinating the work of multiple groups, but much of this is quite superficial. 
This thesis extends that work by exploring how a programme in the everyday coordination of 
project team members around delay incidents. A boundary object approach is used to explore a 
London case in which multiple programmes are used extensively and two Southeast cases with 
limited engagement with a programme. The contrast offers insights into differences in the 
formality and extent of engagement in the construction and management of delays. Data was 
obtained using observations, interviews, and documents.
The results highlight six ways in which different project groups engaged with programmes. First, 
it shows that different project groups constructed time differently (linearly or cyclically) in 
designing programmes and organising work. This led to the multiplication or reproduction of the 
initial programme, with each version adjusted to the needs and interests of specific groups. These 
multiple versions served by mediating the relationship between different project groups and 
were reconciled through project group meetings and discussions. Second, the research found
that the mode of engaging with a programme (formal or informal) varied across the three cases. 
In the London case, project groups used versions of the programme formally at six different types 
of meetings, including: progress meetings, labour forecast meetings, progress review meetings, 
programme revision meetings, internal supplier meetings and joint inspection meetings. In the 
Southeast cases, project groups engaged informally with programmes with quick verbal 
exchanges. Third, the three case projects demonstrated different uses of the programme at 
different moments. Uses included: to distribute task and responsibilities at multiple levels, to 
manage project resources at multiple levels, to manage the expectations of project groups, to 
support firms to negotiate their interests, to capture knowledge of activities and agreements at 
multiple levels and to communicate the progress of work in percentages at multiple levels. The 
way project groups used a programme in delay incidents depended on the context and were 
responses that usually involved avoiding financial losses of placing or not placing workers, 
materials, or equipment to work. Fourth, the case projects demonstrated that project groups 
used programmes to socially construct delays. In the London case, project groups used 
programmes to construct delays as concrete and visible by recording negative slip values and 
positioning a drop line on the programme. In contrast, project groups in the Southeast cases 
treated delays informally and did not record them on the programme, thereby rendering them 
invisible or abstract. Fifth, the case projects demonstrated that project groups responded to 
visible and invisible delays differently. In the London case, project groups responded to visible 
delays with negotiations around the formal extension of deadlines, leading to a reconstruction of 
slip values on the public or construction programme. They also responded to delay incidents with 
a mutual accommodation of the work and programme. In the Southeast cases, project groups 
responded to abstract or invisible delays with negotiations that extended the project duration, 
without any formal recording of specific delays. The three case projects showed that it is only
after project members used a programme to count or interpret and then label the progress of a 
project as delayed, that they began to treat or view the project as delayed. Sixth, the case projects 
showed that the programme played different roles in different delay incidents. In the London 
case, project groups used versions of programme in three ways: to halt the position of a drop line 
on the construction or public programme instead of moving it to a current date, to skip with the 
drop line periods that were unproductive and to develop a mapping of slip values as delays at 
multiple levels (zones, subzones, and areas). In contrast, project groups in the Southeast case 
used versions of the programme to discuss delays and issue early warning notifications. Delay 
incidents led project groups to adjust initial forms of organising with a changing understanding of 
a programme when programmes move between groups. 
On the basis of these findings, this research argues that the multiplication of a programme into 
different versions and the modes of engagement enabled different project groups in different 
contexts to develop realistic responses to deadlines. The contrast between the London and 
Southeast cases suggests that project groups use programmes informally when they have a 
history of working together. However, in situations where project groups have no prior business 
relationship or distrust each other, they engage more formally with a programme to penalise 
firms that breach contractual agreements.