Fit for the future

Tackling the UK government's four Grand Challenges requires governance structures able to cope with uncertainty over the next three decades

Normalizing White-Collar Wrongdoing in Professional Service Firms

There is extensive literature on top managers committing wrongdoing, but few studies examine white-collar wrongdoing. Drawing on the experiences of a professional service firm, we examine why and how engineering consultants normalize wrongdoing. Leveraging bounded rationality theory, we find that organizational myopia promotes inadequate administrative systems that hold consultants prisoner to their rules and procedures, leading to normalized wrongdoing. Our theoretical contributions are threefold: (1) we contribute to the literature on wrongdoing, presenting the relation between organizational myopia and normalized wrongdoing, (2) we contribute to the administrative systems literature, showing their link with poor project performance, and (3) we show how administrative systems and normalized wrongdoing play a role in project scope creep. We introduce an iceberg model to show that the failed project (the tip of the iceberg) is due to organizational myopia and inefficient administrative systems that need to be addressed before starting any project

Futureproofing Complex Infrastructure Projects Using Real Options

Existing project performance measures in the infrastructure sector focus on construction performance (time, cost, quality) and pay less attention to lifecycle performance. The consequence of this shortsighted perspective is that decisions taken early lead to poorer solutions. Infrastructure that should last centuries quickly becomes inadequate, leading to costly reconfigurations. Real options reasoning can help managers to overcome this issue by unlocking lifecycle performance thinking in complex infrastructure projects. Real options reasoning enables managers to explore the value of flexibility by employing futureproofing strategies during the development process. From analysis of interviews with experts in healthcare infrastructure, we observed that projects that led to obsolescence were developed using tight design briefs and were focused on capital targets, and decision-makers were less invested in the concept of futureproofing. On the other hand, projects that were futureproofed followed a loosely-defined design brief and shifted focus towards whole-life targets. We make five recommendations for futureproofed infrastructure

Cybernetics in Project Management: a conceptual framework to analyze and enhance the performance of alliances via the application of Viable System Model

Large infrastructure projects are becoming increasingly complex with ever-growing challenges ahead. To date, productivity growth in the infrastructure sector has been slow, when compared to manufacturing, but there are sector exemplars that have developed innovative approaches to delivery. Alliancing is one such approach that has showed promise in tackling some of the problems of poor infrastructure productivity. It is where all parties coalesce to form a project enterprise where they can share risks and rewards and remove transactional costs. This paper aims to investigate what is known about project alliancing, by reviewing it through the lens of a Viable System Model (VSM) and Cybernetics. As such it will explain and analyze the viability and capability of alliances in self-organizing and adaptability. This paper proposes a new approach and establishes a framework for project-based enterprises that will help them face challenges and adapt to environmental uncertainties

Supporting future-proof healthcare design by narrowing the design space of solutions using building information modelling

BIM has been characterized by the UK Government’s chief construction adviser as unstoppable regarding its rise in construction and he further positioned BIM as mandatory for public projects in the UK by 2016. Moreover, large scale public projects such as healthcare facilities must be seen as a process, being able to meet the constantly changing demands imposed on healthcare infrastructure. Facilities should be designed as change-ready rather than to meet fixed requirements, therefore, the designer should accommodate as large section of design space potential solutions instead of mistakenly narrowing the response of the project to only one solution. Scenario based design was employed as research and design method for the proposed software modules which would extend the Activity Database (ADB). Two modules are proposed that will enable designers to improve their spatial design decisions for both new and refurbishment projects through partially automated knowledge extraction. Additionally, the integration of flexibility and standardisation concepts has been addressed. The proposed design approach is intended to provide rich knowledge representation at the early stages of the design process in less time and effort

Design of flexible and adaptable healthcare buildings of the future: a BIM approach

The UK's Government Construction adviser announced that all the public construction will be implemented with BIM in the coming years. This decision affects dramatically the design phase of healthcare facilities as by 2016, BIM is mandatory in the implementation of the design process. Moreover, The UK Construction Strategy plan does not offer for investigating the multidisciplinary design space of possible solutions. The uncertainty that impacts on healthcare (demographic trends, changing patterns of disease, technological advances and clinical knowledge) has led healthcare policy makers to take action to manage demand for healthcare services and the supply enabled by healthcare infrastructure. A state of the art review of literature identified that healthcare facilities are not designed to be change-ready and that owners of such facilities have dynamic requirements. To future-proof healthcare facilities a design process is required to offer a collaborative, parametric lean construction practice that enables the design team to generate and analyse flexible healthcare building design spaces based on multi-stakeholder requirements. BIM and Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) offer dynamic decisions early in the design process. Here, IPD, the RIBA Outline Plan of Work 2012 and the BIM Guide from the Computer Integrated Construction Research Program were used to define the exact information exchange between the parties in a BIM-based construction process for change-ready healthcare facilities. A generic process map is derived from the literature for future testing and is presented in respect to the principles and philosophies of process protocol

Talking about Futureproofing: Real Options Reasoning in Complex Infrastructure Projects

Complex infrastructure projects often attract criticism regarding their short- and long-term performance. An effective development process requires thinking about both present and future requirements. We employed the lens of real options reasoning to investigate the power of verbal theorizing, without the aid of analytical modeling, to add flexibility in the development process. Drawing on 32 semi-structured interviews with decision-makers involved in health estate projects, we examined if and how informal talks in the development process can lead to futureproof outcomes. Our findings synthesize and conceptualize relevant insights on iterative design thinking, affordability, bounded rationality, and motivational gaps as causal mechanisms for futureproofing talks and thus real options reasoning. This article contributes to the planning and project studies literature dealing with futureproofing complex infrastructure projects

Future-proofing governance and BIM for owner operators in the UK

Owner operators are managing and maintaining their infrastructure assets. In addition, depending on the national economic activity, they are being reactive or proactive in their response against uncertainty. Findings from this study showed that improvements can be achieved if the concept of future-proofing (FP) of assets – as a structured approach against uncertainty – becomes more explicitly defined. FP is the holistic process of taking security measures against uncertainty and being proactive throughout the organisation and its assets. In combination with information management, it ensures that asset management (AM) strategies will become responsive to a number of future changes in requirements. In this context, it is asserted that both FP and Building Information Modelling (BIM) suffer from a dearth of identification in the context of AM. Through a case study, this paper presents an approach that helps clients to future-proof AM at a strategic level. Furthermore, governance agendas for FP and BIM capabilities for future-proof information have been identified that owner operators and the supply chain can find useful