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Background: Research has revealed an inadequate understanding of the owners’ and users’ strategic objectives and a lack of methodology for translating these objectives into functional buildings. Fulfilment of owners’ and users’ objectives is fundamental in creating value through a project. Management and design processes can be decisive in achieving the desired objectives. Hence, knowledge about what creates value applied into a management framework will enable higher value creation.

This paper aims to identify the potential barriers to municipal pipe renewal in Norway and the opportunities to mitigate these barriers. The research explores why the renewal rate on the pipe network is lower than the recommended through a research study of Norwegian municipalities, by gathering exploratory data as a base for a series of semi-structured interviews. The interviews were compiled into a data set and analysed to identify barriers to pipe renewal. The study found that the main barriers to pipe renewal were in the organizational and project implementation segments of the renewal projects. The most prominent groups of barriers were coordination and cooperation, followed by barriers to internal resources such as accessible human resources, time, and economics. Technical aspects during installation were less significant. The findings can impact project implementation by providing knowledge on the barriers and where to focus resources for optimising pipe renewal projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To succeed with projects, we need to understand and manage uncertainty. Uncertainties impact a project's cost, time, and quality performance. The project's front end is challenging for decision makers due to the high level of uncertainty. This paper identifies the most common uncertainties and their origin in the pre-project phase of large road projects. It also analyses the changes in these factors over 20 years. Document studies collected information about uncertainty factors identified in the early phase of 90 large road projects. The research strategy was explanatory, and data were collected from quality assurance reports from a population of large Norwegian road projects. The project cost varies between USD 30 million and over USD 2 billion. Then, 15-factor groups were established for categorising uncertainties. This study shows a rise in uncertainty factors with operational origins and a decrease in uncertainty factors with strategic and contextual origins over the last 20 years. Identifying and understanding common uncertainties and their origins provides policymakers, practitioners, and researchers with useful insights for policy revision and investment decision making and facilitates a proper focus regarding uncertainty analyses in the front end of road projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]