International Journal for Quality Research 11(1) 159–172 ISSN 1800-6450 159 Ermias Tesfaye 1 Tekalign Lemma Eshetie Berhan Birhanu Beshah Article info: Received 11.02.2016 Accepted 19.07.2016 UDC – 005.7 DOI – 10.18421/IJQR11.01-10 KEY PROJECT PLANNING PROCESSES AFFECTING PROJECT SUCCESS Abstract: This paper examines the relationship between project planning processes and project success. Four planning input factors (human, management, technical and organizational factors) are considered which is believed to affect the quality of planning. The study is based on data obtained from different construction projects performed in Ethiopia and includes an analysis on statistical correlation between planning input factors and planning processes, and between planning processes and project success. The study used Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) to identify the key determining factors of project planning on success. The finding suggest that planning processes are insensitive to human factor. Moreover, only three project planning processes (time, cost and risk) are positively associated with the project success. Keywords: Planning input factor, Project planning activities, Project success 1. Introduction 1 Projects play a major role in the economic development of a country. They are the building blocks for generating additional capital and for ensuring a flow of goods and services. The objective of the project management is to realize the planned project objectives (economic development, generation of additional capital, etc). These project management has different phases and processes within it. Each phase contains rigorous and comprehensive activities to be performed. The success of any project is measured by its completion time, within the budget cost and meet the planned performance based on the initial plan. Therefore, planning has an 1 Corresponding author: Ermias Tesfaye email: ermiastes@gmail.com important role on the project success. In order to accomplish all these projects successfully, each of them have to undergo different phases where the level of efforts and impacts to the project success depends on the phases. Among these different phases of the project, project planning is one of the important phases. Although earlier studies have considered many factors that influence project outcome, planning was mentioned as an important factor for project success. Previous researches have indicated poor project planning is one of the reasons for project failure. Moreover researches discovered that there is positive interaction between project planning and project success (Aladwani, 2002; Dvir et al., 2003). Adeyemi and Idoko (2008) showed that project failure in developing countries is significant and involves considerable time and cost overrun. Despite the fact that, in