Swedish construction clients' views on project success and measuring performance

The aim of this paper is to increase the understanding of clients' attitudes to project success and to measuring performance. Four questions are discussed: what are the success factors, what are the success criteria, how to achieve success and what are the characteristics of systems for measuring project performance? The findings will support the development of systems for measuring performance in construction projects.

The paper focuses on professional clients and their organizations within the field of Swedish construction. It is based on semi‐structured interviews with 23 experienced individuals within professional client organisations.

The most important success factors have been identified as the user's participation, commitment to the project, high standard of quality consideration among the construction workforce and team working. The most important characteristics for systems for measuring performance are simplicity and credible results.

Construction clients are often viewed in the literature as having similar views on project success. However, their views differ depending on their businesses, i.e. if they build to accommodate its own organisation, build to own and let or build to sell for maximised profit. This must be considered when developing systems for measuring performance.

The paper presents Swedish professional clients' views on project success. The findings are useful when designing and developing systems for measuring performance in construction projects.