Clients' goals and the construction project management process

Abstract

Purpose

The paper seeks to suggest methods that will enable innovative and effective communication and collaboration between clients and construction project management professionals.

Design/methodology/approach

The methodology involves workshops with construction clients documented in working documents circulated to participants.

Findings

Workshops revealed trends that urge a re‐evaluation of the briefing process. The need for better briefing with the focus on end‐users is increasing. The findings also pointed to difficulties for construction projects to deliver what the user‐clients need. There was considered to be a lack of systems and methods to keep track of user client demands sufficiently and in a satisfactory way. Goals need to be iterated and validated on a regular and coherent basis throughout projects. An increased interest for process‐oriented and strategic briefing was indicated.

Research limitations/implications

Further studies are required to develop a client/user driven construction process that is more than just new statements. Research needs to address not only issues in the business as such, but also what requirements should be put on the education and training of stakeholders who are active in the construction sector.

Practical implications

The paper presents a challenge to the traditional role of several actors; there is a need to communicate core business needs to construction prerequisites in a reciprocal way. There is a need of choosing logic – however, this does not diminish the need for methodologies for capturing, processing and verifying requirements in the process of provision of facilities to a user.

Originality/value

The paper proposes the idea that different logics govern actions by construction industry stakeholders, an issue the construction sector needs to address.

Citation

Lindahl, G. and Ryd, N. (2007), "Clients' goals and the construction project management process", Facilities, Vol. 25 No. 3/4, pp. 147-156. https://doi.org/10.1108/02632770710729737