COVID and Collaboration

Every year, Arcadis publish their Global Construction Disputes Report. The messages have been pretty consistent over the last five years – average dispute values globally are holding steady ($30-40m) as are average times needed to settle them (14-17 months) – so avoid disputes if you possibly can, settle rather than head to court, and draft / administer your contracts professionally. All useful data and advice in a world that we were all familiar with – and then COVID came along!

We have yet to see the full impact that this will have on our projects and who’s going to pay for the additional costs, delays, loss of productivity, and ultimately loss of revenue. We are in unchartered territory, and it will be several years before the damage can be truly counted.

With this as the background to their 10^th Anniversary Report, it is interesting that the theme for 2020 is “Collaborating to achieve project excellence”. Like many industry commentators, collaboration is being seen both as a route for guiding us out of this once in a generation risk event and as a mindset for the future. This extract from the report summarises this well…

“Collaboration among project participants is often overlooked in avoiding, mitigating and even when resolving disputes. A common thread running through the results of Arcadis’ Global Construction Disputes Report is that bad relationships doom construction projects much more often than bad soil, bad weather, bad equipment, or a bad design. On the flip side, a willingness to compromise, set emotions aside and concentrate on what makes good business sense is a key contributor to successful dispute resolution. With COVID-19, the industry is dealing with an impact that it has never faced.

Creative solutions will be required to successfully start and complete projects. Components that are part of successful collaboration such as unlocking creativity, trust between project participants, dealing with change in a positive way, and sharing a common goal will all be vital for the successful completion of projects and overcoming impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

At Kingsfield, we are seeing a few examples of owners and contractors exhibiting this creativity, building more trust in each other and finding solutions around the common goal of completing the project – but it is still not commonplace. It would be really interesting to hear your experiences around how this massive challenge is being handled in your projects, and especially where you have examples of true collaboration in the interests of that common goal – your project.

You may be interested in Kingsfield Academy growing list of collaboration courses:

Introduction to Project Collaboration

Building Collaboration Skills and Strategies for Projects

Understanding Collaborative Contracting

Implementing the Collaborative Working Agreement (CWA)

Implementing the ECITB Project Collaboration Toolkit