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Family Name	TENZIN	Given Name	Kinley
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Family Name	WANGCHUK	Given Name	Tenzin

Unit Details
Unit Code	MAN 6305	Unit Title	Contemporary Approaches to Project Management
Name of Lecturer	Dr. Alistair J Campbell	Due Date	30/08/2020
Topic of Assignment	Research Proposal	Group or Tutorial (if applicable)	Group 6
Course	Master of Project Management	Campus	Joondalup
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Table of Contents

1. Introduction 2

2. The research problem statement: 2

3. Aim and Objectives (Purpose & Research Questions) 2

4. Literature Review 3

Major Causes of scope creep in projects: 3

Major impacts of scope creep in construction projects: 4

Literature gap: 4

5. Research Design & Methodology 6

Research design: 6

Research approach: 7

Research philosophy: 7

6. Population of the Study 7

7. Data Collection & Analysis Methods 7

Data sources: 7

Data analysis techniques: 8

8. Context & Significance of the Research 8

9. Rationale for the Research 8

10. References: 9

1. Introduction

Construction projects are considered to be large and complicated projects. This is due to its size and extensive requirements standards, time consumptions and financial requirements as well. Defining a scope is one of the major components of the project management and any change in the scope determines the project success rate. It very important to determine the scope of a project such that a direction can be given to the project. However, when it comes to the construction projects, due to the change in the requirement or the change in the schedule or approach towards the project may lead to the scope creep (Project Management Institute,2017). Scope creep makes the project very unstable leading to other issues such as hike in the project cost, or delayed project delivery. The impact of the issue is high when the project complexity is increased. The research aims to analyse the challenge of budget escalation due to the scope creep in a construction project. The research also aims to determine the ways in which this can be prevented in the construction projects. For conducting the research, both the primary and secondary sources are considered. For the purpose of data analysis, qualitative and quantitative analysis methods both are considered.

2. The research problem statement:

Construction projects are usually large complicated in nature and as mentioned above, the chances of the scope creep increases due to the increase in complexities of a project. The project is undertaken such that the effect of the scope creep on the cost of the project can be determined in the construction industry sector, such that mitigations can be obtained.

3. Aim and Objectives (Purpose & Research Questions)

The aim of the research is to identify the impact of the scope creep on the cost of projects in the construction industry and identify the mitigation techniques.

1. What are the major causes for the scope creep in the projects?
2. What are the major impacts identified in the construction projects?
3. How are the construction sector preparing itself for the mitigation of the issues arising due to the scope creep in the projects?
4. Literature Review

Major Causes of scope creep in projects:

Construction projects are often prone to hike in costs and delayed schedule issues. When the project is bigger and hundreds of people are involved in it, the issues seem bigger. However, the majority of the issues are caused due to the change in scope or scope creep. According to Amoatey & Anson, (2017) the scope creep is unexpected and uncontrolled changes of the requirement of the project. It was also supported by Hussain (2012), who said the changes in the projects in constructions are often done slowly and unofficially, which results in the extension of the project timeline. However, Helms, (2012) mentions that the scope creep is just the result of the identification of what the client needs from a project. Hence, it can be concluded from the above discussion that scope creep cannot be identified right in the beginning and happens uncontrollably in a project resulting in other aspects of the project.

There can be multiple reasons which are responsible for the scope creep. This includes the misunderstanding between the client and the company regarding the deliverables of the project. This happens due to the lack of clarity in the project while the scope was in the process of development. This is supported by Devi & Ananthanarayanan, (2017) who said that the project managers often agree upon the changes made to the project without giving proper thought to the after-effects of the changes. Lack of proper change management in a project often results in delayed project and cost escalation in the construction industry. These are a few mentions of the reason behind the scope creep. However, these are enough to understand the impact it has on construction projects. In the next section, we will discuss the impact of the scope creep in the project.

Major impacts of scope creep in construction projects:

The impact of the scope creep in projects is negative in general. One of the major problems which have been detected by the project managers in the construction project is the delayed delivery of the project (Komal et al., 2020). Once the changes have been imposed in the project without proper planning in the beginning, the schedules or milestones of the projects are often compromised giving rise to the time overrun of the project.

According to Kermanshachi & Rouhanizadeh, (2019), the cost of the project can be increased up to four times the initial cost of the project due to the uncontrolled change of the project scope. This could again give rise to the lower return on investment from the construction projects and further increase in the cost of maintenance. The issues due to the cost overrun have been witnessed in the countries like Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and others as well (Sindi, 2018).

Literature gap:

Though numerous researches have been undertaken, very fewer researches have been conducted regarding the scope creep and its impact on cost in the Australian construction industry. In this research, we will try to gather more information regarding the construction industry of Australia and how the scope creep can affect the cost of construction projects in the country.

Theoretical Framework

5. Research Design & Methodology

Research design:

The research design is of three main types and they are—exploratory, explanatory and descriptive. Due to the nature of the research questions developed, the research is slightly inclined to the descriptive research design. Hence for the purpose of the research we will consider the descriptive research design. This will help in providing the suitable details of the research topic related to the construction industry, scope creep and the escalations of the cost of the project.

Research approach:

The research approach is mainly of two types, one is the inductive research approach and the other one is the deductive research approach. As per the research questions this research is most likely to be approached in deductive manner. Research questions are developed in the beginning of the research and aims and objectives of the research are determined which helps in giving the research a direction. The inductive approach will most likely be discarded as it is related to development of new theories which is not necessary for this research.

Research philosophy:

Research philosophy helps in briefing the readers about the ways in which the research data has been collected with respect to the research topic. The research philosophy are mainly of three types, and they are, positivism, interpretivism, and realism. We will take realism into consideration for the purpose of this research.

6. Population of the Study

The population of the research are the people who are involved in the research data analysis and survey process. For collection of the primary data, a target population is needed. This is known as the population sample. For the purpose of sampling, the simple random sampling technique will be used.

7. Data Collection & Analysis Methods

Data sources:

For the purpose of the data analysis, both primary and secondary data will be considered. For the purpose of collection of primary data, online surveys will be generated. For the collection of secondary data, articles and journals will be used from peer reviewed sources such that the legitimacy of the article sources can be ensured. However, interviews from the experts regarding the research topic will add up resources to the secondary data.

Data analysis techniques:

For the purpose of analysis of the data, the qualitative and the quantitative data analysis has been taken into consideration. The qualitative research analysis will give us a detailed theoretical concept regarding the research. Some of the research questions will be answered with the help of the qualitative data. The quantitative analysis will analyse the data collected in the form of survey responses and help in finding the regression.

8. Context & Significance of the Research

The research will help in identifying the effects of the cost overrun due to the scope creep in a construction project. This will also help in the identification and analysis of the impact of the scope creep issue in a project.

9. Rationale for the Research

The research will give an idea of the escalation of the cost in the project which may be one of the major impact of the scope creep. This will also help the project managers to derive the mitigation for this issue.

10. References:

Amoatey, C. T., & Anson, B. A. (2017). Investigating the major causes of scope creep in real estate construction projects in Ghana. Journal of Facilities Management.

Devi, A. C., & Ananthanarayanan, K. (2017). Factors influencing cost over-run in Indian construction projects. In MATEC Web of Conferences (Vol. 120, p. 02023). EDP Sciences.

Durdyev, S., Omarov, M., & Ismail, S. (2017). Causes of delay in residential construction projects in Cambodia. Cogent Engineering, 4(1), 1291117.

Helms, H. (2012), “In defense of scope creep”, available from A list Apart: http://alistapart.com/article/ scopecreep (accessed 18 August 2020).

Hussain, O. (2012), “Direct cost of scope creep in governmental construction projects in qatar”, Global Journal of Managment and Business Research.

Kermanshachi, S., & Rouhanizadeh, B. (2019, June). Sensitivity Analysis of Construction Schedule Performance Due to Increased Change Orders and Decreased Labor Productivity. In Proceedings of the 7th CSCE International Construction Specialty Conference (ICSC).

Komal, B., Janjua, U. I., Anwar, F., Madni, T. M., Cheema, M. F., Malik, M. N., & Shahid, A. R. (2020). The Impact of Scope Creep on Project Success: An Empirical Investigation. IEEE Access, 8, 125755-125775.

Madhuri, K. L. (2017). Introduction of scope creep life cycle for effective scope creep management in software industries. International Journal of Industrial and Systems Engineering, 27(4), 557-577.

Moneke, U. U., & Echeme, I. I. (2016). Causes and Effects of Scope Creep on Large-Scale Public Sector Construction Projects. International Journal of Engineering and Technical Research (IJETR) 5 (2), 165-172.

Project Management Institute. (2017). A guide to the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK guide) (Sixth edition. ed.). Project Management Institute. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=1595320

Sindi, M. (2018). Scope Creep in Construction Industry of Saudi Arabia. Science, 3(2), 277-281.

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