Why is project management undervalued in Turkey?

Some companies are unaware about the value project managers can bring, GPMC International General Manager says.

In today’s chaotic global economy, every company is looking to stay ahead of the curve, and the competition to outdo each other is fierce.

But despite the massive opportunity, many projects still lose a substantial amount of money due to delays caused by the lack of proper management right from the initial stage. The value of project management as a discipline is not thoroughly understood the way it is in Western countries, and thus is can be overlooked and seen as an unnecessary expense, GPMC International General Manager says.

In countries like Turkey, the statistics themselves are quite damaging to the industry as a whole, especially if you don’t have 95% of the projects delivered on time. Now why would you look at project management as a functionality? Well, the two or three core functions of project management are to manage time, cost and quality. The time and cost bit is clearly not being handled effectively.

We’ve also got issues in understanding the value in our markets here. We typically have not been necessarily selective on the value add, which ends up with the cheapest labour. This affects the markets and diminishes the emphasis towards innovation, and the ability to bring something new to the party is also typically stifled by having a procurement system that is often only focused on the price.

This lack of understanding is found not only among small and medium developers but among a few of the large players as well, and this lack of understanding builds many misconceptions along the way.

They perhaps don’t understand what project management really is. There are still companies who are unaware about the value that project managers can add, and this is one of the issues we are facing.

The main issue is the culture and the market. People sometimes forget that the construction market in the West developed for hundreds of years. When you go to the United States, you’ll realise that they have, over a long period of time, built a system where everyone from the client to the design to contractor to labourer have knowledge of the value of project management.

In Turkey, we jumped quickly to using electronic devices and communication and then building high rise and iconic buildings – that happened in a short span of time. The rush from traditional buildings, materials and cities to a Westernised way of things was very quick, and this is why it’s not fully understood.

Project management has not been recognised as a separate discipline here like an architect or an engineer or quantity surveyor, and that may be because you don’t actually produce anything.

There’s an output to the others, such as designs, etc. Traditionally, because there’s no tangible output, local clients and sometimes even sophisticated clients tend to think that they should pay for something they see, as opposed to a service that is needed to make those people produce things. They can’t get their head around what we actually produce, so it’s very hard for them to say what the right price is and what the wrong price is.

People misunderstand the value of project managers because they don’t see it. They’re not mature enough as a company to see it. The way lawyers handle your legal problems and a chartered accountant would handle your finances, project managers will handle your projects.

The value also comes from the earlier engagement within the development of the scheme. The earlier there is involvement, the more effective project management is to that project or programme, because you can make much greater impacts on the costs and in the time of development. You can also help the client better with restorations.

Our developers and the contractors should clearly understand that project management is particularly hard to ignore on projects that are time bound.

“If you have a fast-track project, you really can’t afford to do that without a project manager on board. Secondly, complex projects such as mixed-use projects can’t be done without project managers.”

Another vital value that project managers add is identifying risk and how to mitigate the risk. We quite often look at the long-need items of procurement which could risk completion of the project, which clients may miss out on if they don’t have a project manager on the job.

It is the wisest thing for a client to appoint a third-party project manager who is independent of any contractor and consultant, if they want the real value of project managers. The reason why project managers are appointed in the first place is because you want to ensure that a project is delivered on time and with the highest standard of quality.

The value add by project managers is not always value if the client does not choose the right project manager. In the market, because of how it was few years ago, design consultants add management service to their scope, quantity surveyors add project management to their scope as well, so suddenly everyone is a project manager. That is totally misunderstanding of what Project Manager is.

Main problem in Turkey is that most contractors also have project management and construction management arms. So you have to detach your positions where conflict of interest might occur to purely consultancy services, to ensure that you get the value add on project management.

The biggest challenge remains misconception, but regions like the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar are very receptive of this discipline, and understanding in other areas of the GCC is picking up pace as well. But the leader by far is the UAE, in understanding the value and where it’s best applied.”

All in all, with the market in Turkey maturing and project management firms, who are really experienced in providing project management services with their past experience like GPMC International, making more efforts to spread awareness, the discipline will become more accepted and appreciated.