Routledge Handbook of Integrated Project Delivery

Derek Walker, Steve Rowlinson, Derek Walker, Steve Rowlinson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781351735100
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architektur
• Subtopic: Berufspraxis in der Architektur

The concept of integrated project delivery (IPD) has evolved as a result of the need for highly expert teams of people to collaborate to deliver extremely complex projects, to manage expectations about delivery speed, changes in governance standards and to take advantage of and manage expectations raised by rapid advances in technology. All this demands effective change management. This is the first Handbook to contextualise and thematically explore the concept with an emphasis on rigorous practical and theoretical validation.

The Handbook is divided into five sections, each with a focus on several interconnected themes including:

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• An introduction to IPD concepts.

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• The foundational elements and characteristics of IPD.

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• People, culture and collaboration as key ingredients to successful and effective IPD.

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• Technology and process aspects of relational contracting forms such as IPD.

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• New and relevant perspectives to IPD that have received scant attention to date.

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• Aspects and emerging issues that are rarely consciously considered in traditional project delivery due to the commercial imperative that drives firms and client organisations.

The Handbook offers both discussions of these key themes, and also in-depth research into construction and other industry project procurement and delivery that spans decades. In addition, the Handbook presents 'best' and 'better' practice, but also includes insights into cutting-edge experimental developments in technology and practices where proof of concept is currently being developed into emerging practice. Contributing authors in this Handbook collaborate with the co-editors to draw together an integrated set of chapters that align to deliver a coherent narrative of the IPD concept. It is an invaluable reference for practitioners and academics alike, and useful as core course content for numerous degree programs of study and professional development courses.

SECTION 1

Section 1 provides a three-chapter introduction to integrated project delivery (IPD).

• Chapter 1 – Introduction and context: Walker and Rowlinson introduce this book in Chapter 1 by introducing the IPD concept in its more general form to frame the main themes that run through the book and notes the co-editors’ past contributions to this field. It also presents the structure of the book and outlines the content of each chapter.

• Chapter 2 – Characteristics of IPD: a Collaboration Framework overview: Chapter 2, by Walker and Lloyd-Walker, provides an IPD overview and briefly explains a Collaboration Framework based on research that was specifically undertaken into advanced forms of IPD and how it was applied to provide a way of understanding the characteristics of various forms of IPD. Details on that framework will be presented in the other Chapters 9, 15 and 21.

• Chapter 3 – The global state of play of IPD: Chapter 3, by Walker and Rowlinson, provides a ‘state of play’ of IPD forms as they are globally practised. It has a focus on the UK, North America, Australasia, Europe, and Hong Kong and China and also comments on other countries. The industry sector focus concentrates on social and public utility infrastructure projects which tend to be complex and require deep levels of collaboration and system/process integration.

1

INTRODUCTION AND CONTEXT

Derek H. T. Walker and Steve Rowlinson

Introduction

This chapter introduces the reader to the Routledge Handbook of Integrated Project Delivery and to the chapter’s aims and scope within the broader field of procurement.

It is important for us to first define what we mean by integrated project delivery (IPD) and to differentiate it from non-IPD project delivery arrangements. The first section introduces terms, concepts and their meaning as interpreted in this handbook. It is also relevant to readers so that they may be acquainted with the background and track record in this field of the co-editors; therefore, this section also briefly explains how their background adds value to the contribution made by this book. We then briefly outline the structure and logic of the book and conclude with a chapter summary.

This book is marketed in both hard copy and e-book form. We anticipate that readers will subscribe (most likely through a library service) to initially access specific chapters as clusters of chapters that may cover a general course of study or may form the basis for units of study within specific courses forming a degree program. Chapters are logically linked and we endeavour to trace the path that forms coherence between chapters. Throughout the book we draw attention to the reader of cross-links to other chapters that may discuss a particular concept from a perspective in tune with that chapter or may be of interest to readers in gaining a broader appreciation of a topic.

We trust that this book chapter-structure prompts readers to select and read chapters to pursue their interest and to enhance their understanding of this emerging field of IPD study and practice. It is not necessary to read each chapter in any particular order, though the book is structured to flow with its present logic. The co-editors also co-authored chapters with other subject matter experts in this field. This is intended to add coherence to the entire handbook rather than the book being a collection of topics bundled together for convenience into a handbook.

Why collaborate? What is wrong with traditional competitive project delivery approaches?

This handbook is based on the assumption that collaboration under many circumstances is more effective in delivering benefit and value than traditional forms of competitive project delivery. A great deal of literature has documented research into critical project success (for a comprehensive review see Müller and Jugdev, 2012) and failure factors, though the basis and rationale for such judgements about what failure may mean has been critically examined (Sage, Dainty and Brookes, 2014). Recently, Rolstadås, Tommelein, Schiefloe and Ballard (2014) questioned the value of studying critical success factors (CSFs) in isolation from the management approach that was taken. They argue that this approach provides a more insightful view of how success or failure may be influenced by adopting an adaptive versus a prescriptive project management approach, based on three in-depth case studies. This elevates the debate about project success or failure resulting from a mechanistic list of factors to one that has its focus on how projects are managed and further extends the focus of study of success processes undertaken by, for example, Zwikael and colleagues (Zwikael and Globerson, 2006; Zwikael and Smyrk, 2012).

One key feature still not widely appreciated in the debate about what triggers success or failure is the degree of project complexity that poses challenges to the management of projects. Much has been written about the impact of complexity on how projects should be best managed and current thinking suggests that the challenges of dealing with project chaotic or complex situations (for more detail about complexity readers should refer to Kurtz and Snowden, 2003; Snowden and Boone, 2007) that no single or isolated groups of project delivery team parties can effectively envisage and understand the scope, scale and complexity they face by themselves. Current research supports the view that in these project situations collaboration presents a greater chance of success and avoiding failure than traditional forms of project delivery (Davis and Love, 2011; Walker and Lloyd-Walker, 2014;2015).

Research undertaken through in-depth interviews with 50 subject matter experts (34 senior project delivery team members and 16 academic experts in collaborative forms of project delivery) from Australia, Europe and the United States of America with the objective to gather insights about various features and characteristics of alliances revealed seven distinct motivations to undertake IPD (Walker and Lloyd-Walker, 2015;2016). Identified motivations cited by Walker and Lloyd-Walker (2016) are illustrated in Table 1.1.

Two extreme anchor points were identified by Walker and Lloyd-Walker (2016) to enable the degree of motivation to collaborate.

Low levels would be related to a hostile environment for collaboration. This may be, for example, due to lack of conviction of project participants in the value of collaboration within this project’s context. Alternatively, it may be due to institutional imperatives that value strict competitive tension above collaboratively seeking win–win outcome solutions.

High levels would relate to the procurement choice solution being driven by the acceptance of project participants of the logic of a clear advantage being gained by adopting a focus on a supportive and collaborative approach to delivering benefits that align with the values of participants.

They proposed that an assessment of the degree of motivation and context to collaborate could be based on an overriding sense of one or more sub-elements (best value through to unknown risks) that overwhelmingly influence a decision to collaborate in an IPD arrangement based on a rated assessment somewhere between 1 (low) and 5 (high).

We argue, therefore, that for complex and chaotic project types an adaptive form of project management is appropriate and that this requires collaboration between various project teams through IPD such as the project owner team, the design teams the delivery team and facility management teams so that a wider view of problems and opportunities may be appreciated and explored. IPD provides three perspectives to be applied to project delivery challenges that are superior to the limited and disjointed perspectives applied in traditional project delivery forms.

Table 1.1 Identified motivations to collaborate in an IPD form of contractual arrangement

Motivation	Explanation
1 – Best value	IPD forms often place greater effort and emphasis upon ensuring the purpose of the project is clear. Greater consideration is placed on coherence in strategy, on supporting sustainability, and on creating a ‘big picture’ view of the project value outcome, increasingly incorporating social responsibility and triple bottom line (3BL^1) considerations. Even financial bottom-line-focussed business managers have accepted that a focus on cost without consideration of value is restricting and delivers sub-optimal outcomes (Porter and Kramer, 2011).
2 – Emergency recovery	Emergency situations and recovering from a crisis or disaster require swift responses in an environment where little may be known about the scope and scale of recovery works. A series of such situations is well documented in the literature (Waugh and Streib, 2006; Weick and Sutcliffe, 2007) and more recently by Wearne and White-Hunt (2014) in their book on managing the urgent and unexpected. Here the key objective is to start recovery work very quickly while at the same time providing sufficient resilience to enable rapid changes in direction and/or emphasis. This requires deep collaboration to ensure agility, responsiveness and reflexivity.
3 – Experimental	An experimentation strategy is needed when developing innovation and building new competences. Sometimes a project is triggered by the need to experiment. Brady and Davies (2004) class projects whose prime purpose is co-learning and exploration as ‘vanguard’ projects. These projects may be designed to develop completely new stand-alone outcomes, be part of a ramping-up of a learning curve to move to a more production-line approach for new standard-type projects or used to pilot new products, assemblies, systems or procedures as was the case on the Terminal 5 Heathrow project (Doherty, 2008).
4 – Competitive resource availability environment	In highly buoyant economic times, government agencies and other highly constrained (employment levels and conditions) organisations may engage in IPD to offer opportunities to upskill and retain key employees. In less buoyant economic times they may feel that they are in a strong position to demand more of those delivering projects. The business boom and bust cycle, and the long lead time required to prepare staff capabilities for involvement in complex project delivery means that, for government authorities, agencies and many large bureaucratic project owners (POs), retaining key staff and accessing expert temporary staff can present a significant challenge (Gardner, 2002; Martin and Schmidt, 2010).
5 – Relational rationale	The relational rationale implies a perceived need to create, nurture and maintain a form of a relationship, though the extent of commitment may vary. Some choices may be based upon negative past experiences to overcome problems caused, or at least exacerbated, by the chosen project delivery form. Other choices are based on positive past experience with use of a specific form of procurement that worked well within that context.
6 – Known risks	Uncertainty and risk are acknowledged as present within all projects, to varying degrees, with some projects experiencing high levels of uncertainty that may also be difficult to quantify (Atkinson, Crawford and Ward, 2006). This, Atkinson, et al. (2006, p688), acknowledge requires “management flexibility and tolerance of vagueness.” Typically, on highly complicated projects dealing with known unknown risks, the PO does not have sufficient knowledge about potential solutions to adequately frame their brief or define requirements. They are aware of what they don’t know, and they are also aware of what other parties do not know. Collaboration, in this context, allows consideration of a wider range of potential solutions and a richer conversation about how to achieve the project goals.
7 – Unknown risks	Dealing with unknown risks (unknown-known and unknown-unknown risks) poses a particular challenge to traditional and low-level IPD forms because high levels of specification inhibit performance through encouraging defensive routines and associated high levels of transaction cost. In this hyper-uncertain and ambiguous context, the PO and project delivery management team members need a system that allows rapid flexibility to adapt to emerging realities with high level collaboration to facilitate maximising access to relevant knowledge, skills, attitudes and experience to resolve uncertainty. In this situation, all parties know that there are risks out there that they do not know enough about to identify, plan for, and deal with. Sourcing expert advice, through an IPD form, is n...