Small project benchmarking

Benchmarking is recognized as an important function in improving practices and therefore capital effectiveness. In 1999, the Construction Industry Institute (CII) defined benchmarking as a systematic process of measuring one's performance against recognized leaders for the purpose of determining best practices that lead to superior performance when adopted and utilized. It is conservatively estimated that 40 to 50 percent of today's industry capital budgets are spent on small projects, making successful small project execution especially important. However, many companies deliver small projects with comparatively reduced capital effectiveness. The primary reasons are the combination of compressed project life cycle and less management support due to low visibility. Research investigating small project execution has been insufficient up to this point; however, it is evident that providing general practices for small project execution and the validation of their value will contribute to the overall effectiveness of the construction industry. Data from 194 small capital projects were collected and analyzed for this research. This research (1) identifies the differences between large and small projects; (2) utilizes newly collected information to provide industry norms for small project metrics; (3) evaluates the impact of practice use for small project execution; and, lastly, (4) develops a sustainable system to collect and continuously benchmark small project data.