Clients’ goals and the construction project management
Journal article, 2007
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.
Keywords Construction operations, Project management, Construction industry, Sweden
Paper type Research paper