A framework for developing new visualization schemes for construction project performance monitoring

Over the course of a typical project, project managers should constantly monitor actual project status and resolve any discrepancies between planned and actual performance. However, it is not always easy to track and identify performance problems since a typical construction project generates a great volume and variety of ever-changing data during the control phase of project. The project success usually depends on responsiveness and agility in managing inconsistencies between targeted and actual performance. Therefore, voluminous quantitative data must be transformed into meaningful information that enables project managers to gain insights into actual project status and make more informed decisions in dynamic and complex environments. Especially in large-scale projects, project failure often results from flawed perception of discrepancies between planned and actual performance caused by complexity and significant amounts of data while the project is operated under tight budgets and timeframes. Conventional ways of presenting project data may not be appropriate for monitoring project performance, which means that project managers waste their valuable time on non-value added tasks such as exploring voluminous and unstructured data sets and transforming abstract data into meaningful information. Therefore, an essential factor to project success is the availability of an effective and intuitive project monitoring tool. The research proposes that visualization schemes not only provide a useful means of identifying performance problems from key aspects in project monitoring, but also enable project managers to gain insights into actual project status. This dissertation aims at developing a framework for visualizing project performance information, which can be used by a community of developers to create new visualization schemes for the domain of construction management.