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This paper aims to develop a practical tool to evaluate the outcomes of innovative practices in the building and construction industry.

A practical tool was proposed. It is an online tool programmed in a JavaScript environment. A previously developed and tested framework was the basis for this tool. Six case projects were used to test and validate the reliability of the tool. The outcomes of the building projects were categorized into six categories of economic, quality, social, environmental, satisfaction and soft and organizational impacts.

The most important finding of this research was that the evaluation of innovation in building and construction would be possible only if the subjective assessment is tolerated to include the non-monetary outcomes in the evaluation, as well as the monetary outcomes.

The findings of this research are limited to the domestic and medium density building projects; thus, the outcomes might be generalized with appropriate care. The developed tool would assist practitioners in the field of building and construction to realize the impacts of innovation introduced into their projects. The project owners and developers could be the main audience of this tool.

The main contribution of the current study into the literature is the consideration of tangible and intangible outcomes of innovation together. In other words, this tool not only evaluates monetary outcomes but also takes into account non-monetary outcomes. It has been stated in the literature that 80 per cent of firms choose “non-numeric” project selection models (Meredith and Mantel, 2006). To provide a full representation of the reality, this model considers both numeric and non-numeric measures by applying both quantitative and qualitative evaluation methods. The project owners and developers could be the main audience of this tool. It is worth mentioning that this tool is the first attempt of its kind for building and construction projects, and it is applicable and fully practical.

This tool is the first attempt of its kind to evaluate practically the outcomes of innovation in the building and construction industry. The tool practicality and applicability in the real-world project is a privilege which gives more reliability and credibility to the proposed approach of innovation evaluation.

Unlike manufacturing and research and developments, major infrastructure projects rarely emphasize or drive their objectives on the basis of innovation. This is in part because of a risk-averse culture, yet conceivably great benefits and opportunities are being lost because of this behavior.

The case for focusing on innovation in infrastructure projects is that the reasons driving innovation are not fully understood, and this impedes the effective implementation of lessons learned for the numerous innovative projects into practice more generally. The purpose of this study was to discover how innovation is produced and captured in major infrastructure projects in Australia and to understand how innovation may be replicated for future projects through refinement of design, project management, finance and procurement.

Engineering and project managers may find this paper helpful to better understand how innovation might happen in infrastructure projects and what different forms it can take.

The findings of this study demonstrate that people and culture drive consistent successful infrastructure outcomes more than simply the development of new products or processes.

Although the construction industry is known for its low level of innovation and slow pace of change, some of its characteristics not only make this sector unique but also provide some opportunities to innovate. Innovation evaluation has become one of the priorities for building practitioners. This study aims to develop a practical methodology to evaluate the outcomes of innovation in small building and construction projects.

The research used three real case projects and information along with what was found in the literature. A framework was developed based on an extensive literature review of innovation outcomes evaluation.

The outcomes of the building projects were categorized into six categories of economic, quality, social, environmental, satisfaction and soft and organizational impacts. It was found that the outcomes of innovative practices in construction projects could be evaluated if subjective assessment is tolerated. The findings of this research are limited to the domestic and medium-density building projects, thus the outcomes might be generalized with appropriate care. The proposed practical framework would assist practitioners in the field of building and construction to realize the impacts of innovation introduced in their projects. The project owners and developers could be the main users of this framework.

Previously developed models or frameworks have mainly remained at the abstract level that could be used as guidelines, but the proposed framework in this study is practical and applicable to real building projects.

Innovation is at the heart of today's competitive economy. The infrastructure industry of a nation plays a crucial role in its economic development and having understood innovation, and its impacts are very important in the current turbulent economic environment. Innovation and infrastructure are both referred to as two main factors to getting competitive internationally; therefore, having innovation evaluated has become one of the priorities for most governments and organizations. Innovation is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon and is very difficult to measure. The aim of this paper is to develop a framework to evaluate innovation and its benefits in infrastructure projects. For this purpose, a systematic review approach was adopted to review past and current models and frameworks in the literature related to the field of innovation and measurement. As the literature is very fragmented and lacks consensus on innovation measurement, it was intended to develop a comprehensive framework with a holistic attitude in mind in order to consider as many as possible interacting elements of the innovation process. The results showed that having a clear understanding of innovation requires evaluating not only inputs and intermediate outputs of the process, but also necessitates evaluation of what happens in the process of innovation, as well as longer term benefits. The proposed framework is developed in the context of infrastructure projects, and it consolidated necessary measuring aspects of innovation, especially the risk of impacts in the process. This area of research is new and relatively unstudied in the context of infrastructure. However, this study begins to scratch the surface of a large area of research that can act as the first step toward more reliable evaluation of innovation in infrastructure projects.