Every construction project rests on a handful of decisions made long before anyone breaks ground. The most important of them are rarely about materials or methods. They are about people — who help define what the project even is and whether it can be built at all, who sets its scope and its budget, who leads it, who designs it, who builds it, and who can be trusted to deliver what they promise. The best investors and project leaders know that most project failures are set in motion during planning, and they act accordingly.

For an investor, entering a project usually means taking on debt and committing capital well beyond what is held on the balance sheet. That investment is then entrusted to professionals whom the investor can, at best, only believe will deliver their part as promised. It is one of the hardest calls in the whole project lifecycle, and the industry talks about it surprisingly little. It is worth asking why team selection is so underrated, given how much time and money the wrong choice can cost.

This article is about that call — and about a new research initiative led by IPMA and IPMA Croatia that sets out to understand it properly. The survey is open now, it is anonymous, and it is meant for everyone who takes part in construction projects — in any role and at any stage of the project.

A project is only as strong as the team behind it

A project is carried by a team, not by a single hire. The project manager sets the tone for how the work runs: how information travels, how risks are caught while they are still cheap to fix, how budget and schedule are defended once pressure arrives. But the consultant who framed the scope before that, the designers, the supervisor, the contractors and their subcontractors all shape the result in their own way. A weak link anywhere is felt everywhere.

Timing matters just as much. The people best placed to prevent problems are often brought in too late — once the scope is set, the budget is fixed and the main contracts are signed. By then, many of the decisions that could have been influenced are already closed.

And each of these appointments comes down to the same question: how much can you really find out about a person or a company before you hire them?

In practice, it comes down to who you know

Most of the trust in this industry travels by recommendation. A good word from someone you have worked with carries enormous weight, and for good reason — it is often the only information you have that was actually tested on a real project. This works well, right up to the moment you step outside your own circle.

Beyond it, things get harder. References are difficult to check independently. A list of past projects tells you where someone was, not what they contributed or how the project ended. Honest feedback is also scarce: people are careful about what they say, and to whom, when a colleague’s reputation is at stake. So the answer to how much you can find out depends less on the candidate than on the size of your network and the time you are willing to spend asking around.

Certifications help, but they answer a different question. A credential tells you that someone has met a recognised professional standard. It does not tell you how they work when a project starts to slip — how they communicate, how they solve a problem, whether they hold a deadline. That gap, between what is written on paper and what happens on site, is where much of the risk sits.

What it costs the industry

These are not soft problems. They feed into one of the most stubborn numbers in construction. According to McKinsey’s 2024 report Delivering on Construction Productivity Is No Longer Optional, global labour productivity in construction improved by only around 10 percent between 2000 and 2022 — roughly one fifth of the rate achieved by the wider economy, and far behind manufacturing.

The report lists several reasons: technology adopted for control rather than for productivity, improvements that work on one project but never spread to the next, thin margins that discourage investment, and projects that keep growing in complexity. It also names a problem that sits much closer to the project team. The industry is already short of people in exactly the roles that decide how a project runs — engineers, skilled workers and project managers — and when the pressure is on, teams are staffed with whoever is available rather than whoever is right.

What the research is asking

This is the ground the new IPMA and IPMA Croatia survey sets out to map. It asks practitioners across the industry — owners and investors, project managers, designers, supervisors, consultants and contractors — how they actually select project teams today, how much weight they give to references and certifications, and where the current approach lets them down.

It also looks ahead. Could a verified, tamper-proof record of someone’s completed projects change how much you trust a recommendation? Would you act on a suggestion made by a digital platform, or treat it only as a starting point? These are open questions, and the people best placed to answer them are the ones doing the work.

Take the survey — it takes a few minutes

The survey is anonymous, takes a few minutes, and is open to construction professionals worldwide. If you wish, you can leave your email at the end to receive the results report once the data has been analysed.

Take part in the survey here: https://l40l2anua4j.typeform.com/to/E9KAnHH8

A note from us

At VOLUM3, we spend our days on exactly this part of the industry — how project teams coordinate, share information and build the trust that keeps a project on track. That is why we are glad to help spread the word on research that looks honestly at how those teams are chosen in the first place. Better evidence on selection and trust is good for everyone who builds. A few minutes of your experience will help create it.