Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the Last-Planner-System’s impact on project cultures in terms of partnering. Design/methodology/approach: A case study was performed using multiple data gathering approaches. The project cultures of three projects not applying the Last-Planner-System were compared with three projects that apply the Last-Planner-System. In total, 30 participants were involved in the study. Semi-structured interviews were held and analysed by applying qualitative content analysis. Also, the “organizational culture assessment instrument”, which belongs to the “competing values framework”, was used by means of an online survey. Findings: The Last-Planner-System leads to increased levels of mutual understanding and control about the tasks and issues of the other parties. This detailed overview leads towards a more distinguished evaluation of the trustworthiness of individuals. This does not necessarily lead to a partnering project culture. Originality/value: The contribution to research is that higher levels of transparency and mutual understanding do not necessarily lead to a high level of trust. Rather, transparency could be seen as a controlling mechanism that leads to better-founded estimations about the trustworthiness of others in the project.

This paper presents the findings from a study of the breakdown of project success criteria. An exploration of the evolution of studies on the success of engineering projects over decades was the basis for a project success definition proposal. Using a comprehensive literature review of success criteria for engineering projects, a list of 133 different success criteria was identified. Those criteria were analyzed to develop an integrated framework of project success criteria, describing its hierarchical decomposition. Such a breakdown structure could serve as a starting point when setting project success criteria for a specific project, because the importance of criteria will be context dependent. Practitioners or stakeholders could discuss and tailor it based on specific features of engineering projects or specific needs and interests. Generally, criteria have evolved from simple work-related factors to focusing more on the complex benefits of the projects. Such an evolving success definition has implications for further studies of project success and might contribute toward a long-term vision in which all projects will be delivered successfully.