Importance of Collaboration in construction practices

“Collaboration in construction” simply means that teams are working together towards one project goal. Everyone can access the main plans and goals of a project at any time, without having to rely on gatekeepers or slog to faraway offices in order to get the information they need.

When collaboration is strong, team members pool their resources and knowledge and prioritize meeting shared goals dictated by the timeline and budget of the entire process rather than their own goals. This, of course, is the ideal way to conduct projects.

Establishing collaborative practices is of particular importance on building design and construction projects, as they are likely to involve bringing together a large number of diverse disciplines, many of which will not have worked together before. They are also likely to involve the co-ordination and integration of a great deal of complex information, procedures and systems.

Failure to establish clear and efficient project-wide collaborative practices can be disastrous.

This has become increasingly true as project structures have evolved from straight-forward client-consultant-contractor relationships to more integrated structures with complex financing arrangements, early engagement of the supply chain and the introduction of sub-contractor and supplier design.

Some of the common challenges of collaboration include:

Overcoming the obstacles and growing pains associated with getting started in a new system
Changing workplace and job site culture, which typically meets new processes with initial resistance
Potentially higher costs upfront, although collaboration efforts typically lead to lower costs in the long run

Collaborative working practices

Procurement Practices

It is important to establish the broad principles of collaborative practice as early as possible in a project, even if some specific details are left unresolved until later stages.

A decision to adopt a collaborative approach should be taken at the outset by the client (perhaps with advice from independent client advisers) so that a requirement to follow appropriate procedures can be included in appointment documents and can be a consideration in the selection of procurement route, form of contract and preparation of tender documentation. The implementation of collaborative practices should then be discussed in detail during consultant team start-up meetings, specialist contractor start-up meetings and pre-contract meetings.

The Government Construction Strategy recommends that public projects adopt design and build, private finance initiative or prime-type contract procurement routes, as these are considered to be more collaborative.

Other forms of collaborative procurement include partnering (sometimes referred to as alliancing), which is a broad term used to describe a management approach that encourages openness and trust between the parties to a contract.

Organization Practices

Organizational working practices that encourage collaboration might include:

Evaluation of the behaviors and collaborative competence of individuals in teams during the procurement process.
Clear lines of communication and authority.
Protocols for the preparation and dissemination of information.
Co-location of team members.
Financial motivation
Regular workshops and team meetings.
Problem resolution procedures, which should be based on solutions, not blame.
Procedures to ensure continuous improvement. This might require continual benchmarking, target setting, assessment, feeding back and adaptation.
Early warning procedures.
Social activities.

Roles and responsibilities

Clarity of responsibility and co-ordination meetings can be improved by the appointment of:

A project sponsor or client representative.
Client champions for different aspects of the project.
A project manager.
A lead consultant.
A lead designer.
A design coordinator (for the co-ordination and integration of designs prepared by specialist contractors).
An information manager for computer-aided design (CAD) or building information modelling (BIM).

Information Management

A consistent approach to software systems, versions, drawing standards and file formats is very important for design projects and will avoid duplicated effort and errors.

Systems might include:

Computer Aided Design (CAD).
Building Information Modelling (BIM).
Common document management systems.
Common data environment.

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