The construction briefing process ; evaluating the influence of personality traits on the performance of the consultant project manager

The briefing process is critical for achieving project success and client satisfaction. It typically involves the consultant project manager co-ordinating the efforts of the demand and supply side stakeholders at the conceptual stage of a project, to identify and define the client requirements. The importance of such early intervention has been highlighted by public sector agencies and professional bodies, leading to the publication of numerous guidance notes and best practice manuals for briefing. Despite such extensive guidance literatures and efforts research shows that current briefing practice is inadequate and a weakness in the construction process. Broadly, the briefing process involves consultant project managers from different background and personality traits. Personality traits are thought of as a pervasive style of thinking, feeling and behaving. The literature demonstrate effective performance relates to an individual`s personality traits. The study attempts to evaluate the influence of personality traits of the consultant project manager on the briefing process. A review of the literature is structured under three chapters; (1) briefing process; (2) consultant project manager role in briefing and; (3) personality traits relationship and influence on performance to introduce a new perspective. It is found that there are correlations between personality traits and effective performance. From the review sixteen traits have been extracted and assessed to be related to the consultant project manager performance in construction briefing. The investigation attempts to establish the relationships between the 16 traits and the consultant project manager performance, and seeks to determine how each trait contributes to effective briefing. This is explored through observing the consultant project manager in briefing and an industry wide questionnaire survey. As the research focuses on the influence of sixteen personality traits on the consultant project manager performance in the briefing process the data was analysed by the Pearson product moment (correlation) coefficient method to evaluate relationships. The research concludes that the consultant project manager performance is connected to the iii sixteen personality traits dimensions tested and these traits are associated with effective briefing performance. The findings have implications for selecting consultant project managers. The implications of the results of this research, and recommendations for future investigations are discussed