Quality Management in Construction Projects in Developing Countries — Where To, From Current Body of Knowledge?

Construction industries, like other industries across the world, consider Quality as one of the primary project parameters. Thus, generic project management bodies of knowledge (BoK) published by different project management profession voluntary organizations, such as the Association for Project Management (APM), Project Management Institute (PMI), and International Association of Project and Program Management (IAPPM), consider project quality management (PQM) as one of the central knowledge areas. These organizations provide generic frameworks for managing project quality across all industries; they do not deal with specific industries (except the PMI publication, which has a Construction extension). Furthermore, they do not seem to distinguish between PQM issues in industrialized and developing countries. There are strong indications to suggest that project management dynamics in industrialized countries differ significantly from those in developing countries. Hence, these differences are manifested in the management of construction project parameters. This chapter takes a leaf from the theme of this book where existing BoK PQM frameworks are primarily adapted as baseline approaches and developing country quality management approach variants are embraced as additions or improvers to propose an appropriate developing country quality management approach. In order to present an appropriate PQM body of knowledge for developing countries, the chapter covers the following: revisit quality management BoK as it exists and highlight its shortfalls and present approaches which will work in the special context of developing countries; present and discuss mainstream project management; consider quality management issues that are of direct relevance to developing countries; discuss likely future developments in PQM in developing countries; and finally, propose further research and further development of PQM as it relates to developing countries.