The ambience of a project alliance in Australia

Abstract

The challenge of delivering construction projects that serve their intended purpose while meeting value-formoney criteria has confronted the construction industry in many countries. The call for a change in culture in project delivery organizations and their clients has also been well documented. The response to these challenges has been a shift from traditional project delivery towards a relational approach that has been gaining momentum for highly complex and/or highly time-constrained infrastructure construction projects. An especially instructive development in this trend has been the growth in project alliancing in Australasia. Literature on project alliancing and related comparable forms of project delivery indicates that this way of performing project business requires an entirely new set of project management (PM) behaviours and a new working atmosphere, environment and ambience within which to work. Traditional PM is carried out in a highly competitive environment, with little or no risk sharing between the various professions and trades involved in project delivery. Alliance projects, in the form used in Australasia, depend upon close relationships between all relevant stakeholders and participants from project concept to delivery and this supports a positive workplace ambience. The depth of this relationship and gain/pain sharing is demonstrated through the alliancing principles and alliance code of practice developed at the project team-formation stage. Research results presented in this paper describe the ambience of alliance projects. They extend our knowledge of project alliancing, the behaviours expected of project team members and the motivations that drive alliance managers (AMs). Reported findings also capture rich insights into the lived experience of project AMs and reveal the nature of the workplace ambience.