Builders and Contractors Exchange
Weekly Bulletin: 19 Jun 2006
Partnering: Not Just Construction Kumbaya
By: Gretchen Baker
The construction process is historically an adversarial one. Ask a typical owner to identify goals for a particular project and you are likely to hear “to finish on-time and under budget.” Pose the same question to a contractor and his likely response will be “to maximize profits.” In a perfect world, these goals coexist. However, quite often in construction projects, which are traditionally riddled with unforeseen conditions, constrained schedules and cost overruns, an on-time, under budget completion is at odds with a contractor garnering a profit.
Enter: Partnering, described by the Construction Industry Council as “a structured management approach to facilitate working together.” Partnering creates a “virtual company” that allows team members to act co-operatively and make decisions in a “blame-free environment of trust.” A far cry from the hand-holding, campfire-singing images the definition invokes, partnering is a beneficial technique with comprehensive advantages to both owner and contractor.
The partnering process is typically three-fold and focuses upon enhanced communication. First, key owner, contractor and agency players are brought together to learn, essentially, how to partner. Next, equipped with partnering expertise, the team identifies goals and objectives. The purpose of this second phase is to merge individual goals of all parties into common project objectives. Also during this phase, participants identify potential obstacles to the realization of their objectives and conjure solutions before the project even begins. In the third phase of partnering, the team reconvenes off-site at regular intervals (typically, monthly) to evaluate the progress of project objectives. The evaluation process usually involves participants completing a standard rating form scoring key elements of the project (budget, schedule, safety, etc.) and offering constructive acclaim and criticism. This typically offers excellent insight into the current climate at various levels of the project and can foretell critical divergence between parties. During these meetings, participants are free not only to discuss the progress of objectives, but also to resolve problems in a non-hostile environment.
Problem resolution during the final phase constitutes the bulk of the value of partnering. In the event an issue was previously anticipated, the project team reaps the benefit of its phase-two planning (with a ready-made plan of response). If an issue was previously unforeseen, the partnering team is still at an advantage. The mere existence of open lines of communication and a history of co-operative issue resolution generally allow parties to resolve new issues quicker and more amicably than without partnering, in an industry where time and working relationships have direct monetary implications.
The economic significance of partnering is recognized by contractors and owners alike. Many top contractors, as well as government agencies (including numerous State Departments of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration), make partnering a regular component of their construction endeavors and embrace the positive results. Although competing interests will always exist in construction, partnering initiatives can significantly improve interactive relationships that have traditionally been adversarial.
Authored by law clerk Gretchen Baker, Gretchen is a civil engineer and is a third year law student at University of Richmond.
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This article is meant to bring awareness to this topic and is not intended to be used as legal advice.