A pilot study of the influence of client complexity and emergent requirements on stakeholder perceptions of project success in the public sector

Construction industry reliance on performance metrics fixed at the project outset is being superseded by increasing use of emergent client judgments to characterize success. Clients may still consider a project that fails to meet formalized time, cost and performance goals successful if it satisfies emergent requirements not understood during initial briefing. Construction practitioners do not routinely recognize that client awareness of requirements improves as projects progress. Internal conflict among the client stakeholders and their reflections on the emerging project solution help client stakeholders to better understand their needs. Dissatisfaction results when these emergent requirements are not acknowledged. The need for practitioners to recognize and respond to these issues is explored by a paradigmatic case study of an office relocation and refurbishment project. The role of the ‘project sponsor’ as a synthesizer of client requirements and reflections on the emerging solution was observed to be subverted by stakeholders in a client body who found their emergent requirements were not acknowledged by construction practitioners. By characterizing the harmful effect of pluralistic client complexity and emergent requirements on perceptions of project success, the rationale for a revised project sponsor role to better address these influences on perceptions of project success is contributed

Eras of value production in the built environment: Extracting principles from past practice

This paper reviews historical approaches to the consideration of value in the built environment. It identifies the central tenets of chronological eras of value consideration that highlight shifts in its understanding and articulation to synthesis a premise for the comprehensive consideration of value in any socially-complex, single-product project environment. The review identifies a shift in institutional logics framing the consideration of value, with early logics seeking value in product qualities, before evolving to consider value within the processes of product or organisational design. Current dominant logics seek value by synthesising mutual understanding of value within groups of people, while future logics are starting to adopt an intergenerational, protectionist perspective. This sequence of logics is characterised as: product, process, people, protection

Solving design problems to add value

Value management is well established in construction to structure early project briefing and to agree satisficing project values and objectives among project stakeholders. Current practice concentrates on the consideration of value during project definition. This paper proposes Integral Value Engineering as a design management practice that considers value in design throughout project resolution and delivery. An expansion of value management principles is proposed to include the adoption of a problem-solving approach and value-adding tools. These can help assemble value-adding frameworks in which design activity is more explicitly focused on project values. The use of problem solving frameworks to relate design method and outcome to project values is described and the notion of documenting these relationships to create a value-adding audit trail introduced. Integral Value Engineering is defined as the consideration of value when solving design problems, irrespective of the project stage in which they occur or their technical nature. The adaptability of the problem solving approach is discussed, together with its ability to accommodate the extensive variability in problem scope and concurrency in construction projects. The role of individual design engineers as practitioners of Integral Value Engineering is also described; this focuses on collaborative forums to incorporate the expertise of specialised suppliers. A web-based Value-Adding Toolbox is described to disseminate value-adding tool descriptions, methods and examples within a single organisation or managed value chain. The paper concludes that, for integral value engineering to be effective, suitable metrics must be identified to monitor the extent to which technical design solutions satisfy overall project values. This would allow responsive mechanisms to be defined so that design development can be managed throughout project duration to ensure that the satisficing values initially defined by value management at project outset will be delivered

Using VALiD to understand value from the stakeholder perspective

A “value agenda” has arisen in the UK’s cultural development in recent years. In the construction sector, a desire to make worthwhile building investments that are socially beneficial as well as commercially successful has become commonplace. This value agenda has become embodied in government policy which has, in turn, shaped the investment strategies of public bodies. Construction projects are becoming concerned with engaging directly with stakeholders to understand and reflect their attitudes, opinions and values in the final solution. In the private sector, the value agenda has stimulated business and societal debate to the stage where fulfilment of stakeholders’ expectations is seen as a precursor to commercial success. It is increasingly held that people seek to use buildings and facilities that reflect their values and which, therefore, they feel at ease with. In response to the above, VALiD (Value in Design) has been developed as a flexible framework that helps construction project teams explore and understand stakeholders’ values as a precursor to delivering value. Within this framework, VALiD defines value as the relationship of stakeholder benefits sought, sacrifices accepted, and resources expended. It is defined individually for every stakeholder in recognition that each has different underlying values and, therefore, a different perception of value. The use of VALiD to define project objectives and assess value delivery performance is described. The paper presents a summary of construction organisations’ response to this treatment of value, including the status of its development through continuing industry and academic research in the UK

Mainstreaming equality in construction: the case for organisational justice

Despite over 20 years of initiatives, research, and agendas the UK construction sector has failed to embed equality into business priorities and approaches; with both women and minority groups remaining under represented and unfairly treated in construction trades and the professions. Literature in this area shows low levels of retention amongst minority groups, high levels of discrimination and key talent from across the population finding the sector unappealing due to its macho image and the lack of diversity. We posit that, before equality can be realised in organisations, the majority of employees must perceive a base level of fairness. To understand how this can be achieved, a review of Organisational Justice is presented; a theoretical perspective which can explain how to encourage co-operation across the workforce. In exploring this we consider how the perceived focus on equality with respect to pre-existing outgroups works against group differential theory and, therefore, question whether the co-operation from the in-group must be necessary for any initiative to be successful

Unpacking cohort social ties: the appropriateness of perceived social capital to graduate early career performance in construction project teams

Construction project teams require social capital. When present in appropriate forms, it creates the social cohesion through which individuals accept project goals as their own. It lets team members share knowledge when present and reveal when it is missing. In education, social learning helps students appreciate the need for social capital appropriate to team performance. In practice, social capital enables the project team learning that overcomes project-specific challenges. Despite this importance, little is known about how students perceive social capital or the compatibility of that understanding with construction project needs. To characterise this aspect of ‘graduateness’, collective understanding of social capital was elicited from construction students in a Scottish university by free recall. Analysis was structured around four dimensions of social capital: cohesion, legitimacy & authenticity, sharing, and safety. Notions of friendship were found to dominate student understanding of the social capital even though this understanding derived from settings where the need for capital to support team performance is emphasised. The potential for misalignment between the capital that graduating students bring into practice with that required by project teams was apparent. The case for further investigation of this influence on early career development was established

Closing the performance gap in the delivery of zero-carbon homes: A collaborative approach

The UK government has mandated that all new homes achieve ‘zero-carbon’ status by 2016. This policy introduces challenging targets for reducing carbon consumption and emissions. Achieving these standards requires, among other technologies, advanced fabric solutions and high quality workmanship to provide air tightness, high levels of thermal insulation, microgeneration technologies, and feedback of building performance to occupiers. Although such technologies have been proven under controlled conditions and in small commercial developments, consistently delivering zero-carbon housing at scale presents considerable technical and institutional challenges. Evidence from initial, small-scale UK schemes suggests that design intentions are difficult to achieve in practice. Novel approaches must now be developed to close the gap between predicted and as-built performance of eco-homes. This paper reports a novel collaborative research project which is developing process and governance solutions to address this performance gap. An action-learning methodology is presented that uses process mapping to model, evaluate and re-engineer design, construction and commissioning processes around the delivery of c. 400 homes in the UK’s first ‘ecotown’ development. The approach integrates expertise from the entire construction supply chain around the achievement of producing zero-carbon homes at scale that reliably fulfil design intentions

Coping with stone: a short-term ethnography of skilled work in UK housebuilding

Speculative housebuilding in the UK is frequently criticised for the poor quality of its outputs and low productivity. Reliance on traditional and overtly manual methods of building are seen as contributors to these problems and this mode of production is unlikely to significantly change in the near future. Individual performances of skilled manual work in housebuilding are investigated using short-term ethnography, which includes traditional techniques of observation and interview as well as the collection of audio-visual data. A theoretical ideal type of 'pure craft' is developed which is then taken into the field and used to analyse the execution of skilled manual work and attendant judgements about the completion of that work. The results of the fieldwork firstly reveal an absence of codified forms of knowledge that cannot be fully explained by the alternative concepts of tacit knowledge. Secondly, the fieldwork validates the potential of short-term ethnography to reveal unforeseen or taken for granted behaviours that play out beyond the usual focus of construction management research

Methodological considerations of the project management of a hospital project within a practice order network

Practice theory offers numerous theoretical affordances, especially to practitioners and researchers of project management who seek alternatives to the problematic assumed universality of 'traditional' theoretical perspectives. However there is several disagreements left unresolved in practice theory methodology that risk compromising its full potential. Illustrated by an on going, praxiographic study of the practice of project management of a major UK National Health Service (NHS) hospital project, Schatzki's notion of site ontology is drawn upon to implement a research strategy that contributes to resolving such disagreements. It is argued that whilst practice theory methodology ought to be ontologically coherent and contextually driven and, therefore, shaped by the research questions and aims, it is also important to constantly reflect dialogically on the relationship between the particular practice theory used and the phenomena being observed. In addition to adding to the extant literature on the conceptualisation of project management as a practice the study's primary contribution is to identify and examine some of the methodological implications to those who want to use a practice theory approach in consideration of the resolution of its contested methodology

Beyond scoring: facilitating enhanced evaluation of the design quality of NHS healthcare buildings

The evaluation of design quality using prescribed instruments, as now mandated by the UK National Health Service (NHS), provides a research opportunity to acquire understanding of the social interaction of the project stakeholder groups when they are engaged in design evaluation activities. This paper argues that there is a pressing need for such a study, as without it, such evaluations may be unnecessarily limited. This paper argues for a fresh and pluralistic approach to be applied to the evaluation of the design quality of NHS healthcare facilities which complements the methods currently used which are enshrined within prescribed instruments. The new approach uses an interpretative research paradigm to understand the social interactions of the project stakeholders whilst they use the prescribed instruments. The decision to adopt such a pluralistic approach is discussed. The users of this work may include those who seek to improve the design quality of NHS healthcare buildings