Assembling A Collaborative Team - Other - Page 9
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Assembling a Collaborative Project Team has been developed in conjunction with
the RIBA Plan of Work 2013, the Overview publication (both available to download
at www.ribaplanofwork.com) and the Guide to Using the RIBA Plan of Work 2013.
It aligns with and supports these two landmark documents, providing more detailed
guidance, specific activities and the focused tools that are essential for those
responsible for and involved in assembling a project team. In particular, it considers
how to create a truly collaborative project team and how achieving this during Stage
1 will make a project easier to run during the design, construction and operational
stages. The guidance and tools can be referenced by any party involved at any stage
of a project, but they are of greatest interest to the project lead and the lead designer.
The RIBA Plan of Work 2013 can be used in isolation and the steps and tools outlined
in this publication are not obligatory. However, even on simpler projects, the processes
that are set out in the Plan can provide an invaluable resource for explaining to a client
the proposed structure of the project team and a means of properly engaging each
party in the project team. In the long run, their use will lead to clearer, more
successful methods of working.
On paper, assembling a collaborative project team should be straightforward.
In reality it is complicated due to:
• the number of parties that have to be appointed
• the various options for appointing each party
• variations in the timing of contractor involvement
• the different ways in which roles can be combined
• apportioning contractor and subcontractor design
• cultural issues associated with working together for the first time
• the parties’ varying levels of experience gained on previous projects
• the lack of standard Schedules of Services for members of the project team, and
• the absence of common protocols and standards.
The steps and tools detailed in this publication reconcile these complexities by
setting out a process that incrementally builds the collaborative project team,
concluding with a number of documents that can work independently or as
appendices to professional services contracts and the Building Contract.
It is essential for any collaborative project team to be constructed during Stage 0
(Strategic Definition) and Stage 1 (Preparation and Brief). The reasoning behind
this requirement and the importance of these initial stages is considered in Chapter 1.
By properly establishing the project team early in the project:
www.ribaplanofwork.com
