Foreword
We are the Collaborative Process Group: a diverse group of owners, designers, and builders committed to achieving extraordinary outcomes — outcomes which exceed the expectations of everyone involved in the project — through the use of collaboration in the building process. We have all, individually and collectively, designed and built projects which have used some, if not all, of the principles of The Collaborative Process. As a result of these principles, we have experienced extraordinary outcomes on our building projects.
Now, having experienced the remarkable benefits which flow from true collaboration, we want to capture those benefits for our clients, our organizations, and ourselves on a more regular basis. Our mission is to revolutionize the building industry by establishing collaboration as the cornerstone of the building process.
We believe that it is possible, in fact imperative, to recreate a spirit of collaboration among participants in the building process, a spirit which was once an integral part of the building process. Enormous amounts of money are wasted each year in direct costs associated with conflict among owners, designers, and builders. Even more significantly, the lack of collaboration in our industry leads to missed opportunities for value creation, a "hidden" cost which impacts all participants. These costs are a massive drain on our economy, and represent an opportunity for competitive advantage in the global marketplace.
Declaration: Historical Background
Building projects were once collaborative undertakings between owners, designers, and builders. Practically all of the great facilities in the world were programmed, designed, and built by teams of skilled specialists working together toward a common goal with a shared sense of ethics, responsibility, and respect.
Early in the Twentieth Century, this system began to come unraveled in the United States. Arguably, builders were the first group to systematically breach the unwritten code by which the industry operated. In many cases, relationships were exploited for unfair advantage, creating large profits for the builders at the expense of the owners and the public at large.
To counteract these abuses, virtually every state in the U.S. adopted "competitive bidding" regulations requiring all publicly funded projects to be lump-sum bid to interested general contractors from complete design documents. This "design-bid-build" approach was also widely adopted in the private sector. While these changes made enormous progress in stamping out the widespread abuses in the industry, the collaborative relationship between builders, designers, and owners was dealt a mortal blow.
The Current State of Affairs
The economic pressures on the industry during the 1980's brought this tension to a head. The entire industry — owners, designers, builders alike — became engulfed in a tidal wave of litigation. The building industry had completed its transformation: what was once widely viewed as a paradigm of cooperation had now degenerated into one of the most adversarial sectors of the economy.
An Owner's Perspective: "I always end a project tired and disappointed in some way. Getting to the finish line always seems like pulling teeth. During the whole process, I feel like a referee in a boxing match. The architect and contractor fight paper wars, and I'm in the middle."
A Designer's Perspective: "Being an architect is not much fun. Owners are more demanding and often unreasonable, but they don't want to pay what it takes to deliver the service they desire... This business is no longer about creativity; it's about protecting yourself from being sued."
A Builder's Perspective: "Being a contractor isn't what it used to be. Owners constantly gripe about quality and change orders... We have to try to get as much as we can on changes, since everything is bid out and if you don't play the change order game, someone else will and soon you'll be out of business."
What Is The Collaborative Process?
The Collaborative Process strives to achieve the optimal combination of cost, quality, function, scope, and time as defined by the unique needs of the client and the project.
The Collaborative Process is not a project delivery method. Rather, it is a comprehensive set of practices, tools, and systems that enable project teams to achieve extraordinary outcomes at each phase of the building process.
While the tools and techniques may be used to supplement all project delivery systems, the full benefit of collaboration can only be achieved when:
- Both the Architect and General Contractor are selected and in place during the initial phase of defining the project scope, budget, and schedule
- Contracts are negotiated on an open-book, win-win basis
- Senior management of all participants is committed to support the process throughout the definition, design, construction, commissioning, and close-out phases of the project
People and Systems
The philosophy underlying The Collaborative Process seeks an integration of people and systems. People are recognized as a vital resource, and the key to long-term success and economic survival. Systems are recognized as important for establishing the right incentives, assuring a rational decision-making process, and achieving optimal outcomes. Neither people nor systems can be dealt with in isolation; rather, both need to be chosen and developed in ways which are congruent and self-reinforcing.
Maxims of The Collaborative Process
- Integrity and trust are essential for true collaboration. Integrity (you will do what you say) and trust (I believe what you say) are the cornerstones of any collaborative relationship.
- The long run is more important than the short run. In order for collaboration to be effective, all participants must have a fundamental concern for the long term implications of their actions.
- Teams make better choices than individuals. Teams are good at achieving optimal outcomes because they enlarge the set of possible solutions, have more capabilities than one individual, and are more likely to identify the best solution.
- In building a team, pre-qualify firms and select people. A team is not made up of organizations; it is made up of people. Personal chemistry, individual capabilities, and teamwork skills are better determinants of team performance than organizational factors.
- True creativity focuses on option generation. Bad design is not the result of selecting the wrong item from a list of possible solutions, but rather from starting with too short a list.
- Change is inevitable: be prepared for it. The Collaborative Process treats change as an opportunity, not for windfall profits, but rather for exploring solutions which were unachievable under previous conditions.
- The basis for decision-making should be facts and reason, not opinions and emotion.
Key Elements
1. High-Performance Teams
The Collaborative Process relies on teamwork to be successful. When organized into a High-Performance Team, people reach new heights of creativity and productivity. Characteristics include:
- Facilitative Leadership — participatory, not command-and-control
- Diversity — cultural and professional differences lead to more creative solutions
- Common Purpose with Specific Performance Goals
- Collective Work Products — joint contributions leading to performance greater than the sum of individual bests
- Shared Responsibility — no team member will allow another to fail
- High Communication — equality, openness, problem orientation, positive intent, and empathy
- Rapid Response — creative problem solving and decision making
- Trust — developed during selection and team building, growing over time
2. Optimization and Performance Measurement
An optimal outcome is defined as having the best combination of cost, quality, function, scope, and time as defined by the unique needs of the client and project. The "Six Dials of Project Value":
- Cost — including life-cycle economic performance
- Time — speed to completion
- Scope — best fit for user's needs over building life
- Function — meeting functional requirements with flexibility
- Safety — zero-accident projects are achievable
- Quality — aesthetic impact, user perceptions, appropriateness of materials
3. Communication
Clear and consistent communication is critical. The Collaborative Process uses High-Performance Team principles to overcome barriers including status, ego, distance, and style differences. Key systems include structured meetings, professional facilitation, balanced contractual agreements, and intensive informal correspondence.
4. Problem Solving and Decision-Making
Decision-making is undertaken by High-Performance Teams using tools including:
- Brainstorming
- Chip Voting for prioritization
- Devil's Advocate to avoid groupthink
- Flow Diagrams & Decision Trees
- Action Planning
- Plus-Delta feedback
- Issue Bins and Decision Logs
5. Incentives and Risk Sharing
The Collaborative Process aligns individual and organizational incentives with project goals through:
- Reputation, references, and repeat-business
- Balanced, reciprocal contracts
- Compensation linked to project performance
- Risk allocated efficiently and equitably
- Team-based rewards and recognition
Future Directions (as of 1996)
The document anticipated several innovations that have since emerged:
- New Forms of Contractual Agreements — industry-standard collaborative contracts (now realized as AIA IPD agreements)
- New Building Technologies — lean production techniques accelerating innovation
- New Business Structures — the "Virtual Project" concept with shared investment and returns
- New Information Systems — shared databases and Internet collaboration (now BIM, cloud platforms)
The Call For a New Standard
We believe that The Collaborative Process can channel the energies of owners, architects, and builders by using a systematic methodology to obtain extraordinary results. It is time to adopt this process as our new paradigm, a new standard which will change the way we do business for the better.