Qualitative effect of project documentation and communication management: the case of Dar es Salaam

Construction industry sources suggest that 85% of a project manager’s time is spent on communication, 70% is paper based (Wierzbicki & Uzdavinis, 2001). Therefore, successful communication between construction parties is critical to the overall success of a construction project; in that case, understanding of local performance of documentation and communication management is vital. The study aimed at establishing causes of documentation and communication management shortcomings in engineering projects with a view to rectify those pitfalls. The researcher used literature review, interviews and questionnaires to obtain information from stakeholders. In assessing how project performance was affected by communication and documentation management Scope, Time and Cost were used as indicators and a Severity Index scale was used for analysis. The results established that Scope, Time and Cost were affected by 69.5%, 66.25% and 77.5% respectively. From the analysis it was concluded that poor documentation and poor communication management affects the project performance in the local construction industry. The research recommended measures on how to rectify the situation basing on the research findings as collected from the stakeholders. They included training staff on communication and documentation management, having well defined communication lines and instruments, ensuring appropriate information preparation, maintaining proper records, and having a self assessment mechanism in the firm/organization to show how the firm is fairing on the communication and documentation management.