Towards total project quality: a gap analysis approach

This paper presents a critique of existing approaches to the management of projects and the definition of project success, arguing that these are both fragmented and fail to place the client at the centre of the process. In this critique, the paper focuses on quality management, and places the minimization of client surprise at the heart of the assessment of project success. As an alternative, a gap analysis approach, derived from the service quality management literature, is developed which, it is argued, provides a better way of understanding the challenge of managing projects. The model is then applied empirically to the Glaxo project, the largest building project in the UK in recent years. The Glaxo project was remarkably successful, and the lessons can be learned well through the perspective of the gap analysis model. In conclusion the paper concludes that quality on construction projects is a negotiated order, and that design reviews are the principal means by which this order is negotiated.