Assembling A Collaborative Team - Other - Page 35
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What is driving further changes to the project team?
To complicate matters still more, a raft of new topics that impact on the design
stages are being embraced by clients. Many of these, such as life cycle costs
or Project Outcomes, are not new; they were just not addressed in the majority
of projects or considered by a high percentage of clients. This situation is now
changing. For example, sustainability has become a more important topic and
clients now expect the many subjects that may be part of their Sustainability
Aspirations to be embraced as part of ‘standard’ design processes.
Of course, the biggest driver for change is currently the new technologies that
allow the data in the various information models to be harnessed for postoccupancy purposes, including facilities management. Contractors are also
seeing the benefits of harnessing such technologies to drive out inefficiencies
in the design process and to eliminate waste on site by ensuring that all design
issues are resolved on computer and not on site. Greater use of modularisation
and prefabrication is anticipated.
From the design team’s perspective, more practices are employing specialists,
such as:
•mathematicians and programmers to assist in the development and understanding
of more complex geometries
•coding experts to ensure that information can be delivered in the appropriate
format at project handover, and
•behavioural experts who can suggest ways of ‘nudging’ the behaviour of a
building’s occupants.
These new subjects, new technologies and new specialisms will result in both
traditional and contractor-led project teams continuing to evolve and the dilemma
of securing early contractor involvement within acceptable cost parameters will
continue to encourage refinements to the project team designed to facilitate
collaborative working and ways of unlocking innovation from all members of
the project team.
Summary
Many aspects of the design process have changed and new duties are providing
new challenges and opportunities. The practices which adapt to the enormity
of these changes will be those setting the trends for the future of practice.
Clients will continue to use either traditional or contractor-led project teams
and both types of team therefore need to be understood. While the use of
contractor-led teams (particularly those using the novation of a traditional
project team) is on the increase, better coordination processes and collaborative
working techniques might result in a resurgence of traditional project teams.
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