Criteria For Strategic Decision-Making at The Pre-Briefing Stage
Criteria For Strategic Decision-Making at The Pre-Briefing Stage
Criteria For Strategic Decision-Making at The Pre-Briefing Stage
The client briefing stage is heavily researched throughout the world. The prebriefing, or strategic stage, which precedes it, is the focus of this research. This is
where the nature of the project is defined because a choice has to be made between
alternative strategies. Ten criteria have been established as the means of evaluating
such strategies and the criteria compared to those emerging from the design,
procurement and project management literature.
Criteria from the urban planning literature have been incorporated into one of the
authors neural network-based software for addressing urban planning and other
problems; titled, Strategizer. The original Strategizer was then modified in order to
manage client problems. This new version is called Stratbuild and it has used our ten
criteria for several simulated and real client briefing problems. The criteria are
described and compared with those used by researchers in the procurement and client
briefing literature. Alternative solutions (some not concerned with a building
solution) have been evaluated using these criteria. Implications for the design team in
focussing on the strategic stages are discussed.
CONTEXT
The lack of communication between everyone involved in the development and
construction process has been a persistent theme in the literature for the last fifty
years. The UK provides a fertile field for relevant governmental and institutional
studies, analyses and reports. For example, reports have published on a regular basis
in every decade from the 1940s beginning with the Simon Report (HMSO 1944, and
most recently the Latham Report (1994). More recently in Australia demands for a
more efficient and effective construction industry has paralleled similar concerns as
the UK (National Public Works Conference/National Building Construction Council
Joint Working Party 1990).
These reports have consistently focussed issues such as:
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Smith, J and Wyatt, R (1998) Criteria for strategic decision-making at the pre-briefing stage. In:
Hughes, W (Ed.), 14th Annual ARCOM Conference, 9-11 September 1998, University of Reading.
Association of Researchers in Construction Management, Vol. 1, 300-9.
the demand for more complex buildings from more exacting clients made the
resolution of these issues more urgent.
The response of professions and industry has often been erratic, temporary and often
too slow. Consequently, clients have demanded improved service and improved
methods of procurement (Bresnen 1990).
Evidence of this, in the UK, occurred when the largest grouping of private sector
clients, the British Property Federation (BPF) seized the initiative in 1983 and
introduced its own project organisation and procurement method (BPF 1983). The
BPF method emphasised the primacy of client needs/requirements with the project
manager taking control of the design and construction process on behalf of the client.
Government was similarly spurred to adopt alternative approaches to procurement
(National Economic Development Office, NEDO 1983, 1985, 1987) and the
Department of Industry (1982). These initiatives encouraged different and innovative
project arrangements as well as procurement methods that are designed to align client
needs with improved project delivery process.
More recently in the UK the Latham Report (1994) has provided a catalyst for the
industry to become more client focussed and to remove impediments to poor
performance. Whilst conflict and disputes received most attention in the report,
special emphasis was given to the importance of clients, good briefing and the
essential need for the industry to become client focussed. The strategic needs of
clients did not receive any detailed attention, but the briefing process was identified as
an important factor in the successful development of a project.
In Australia, the No Dispute Report (National Public Works Conference/National
Building Construction Council Joint Working Party 1990) was prepared with the
objective of,
developing co-operatively proposals for changes in the practices of the
building and construction industry which would lead to improved practices,
and better quality work, with the over-riding aim of achieving a reduction in
claims and disputes.
This report was well received and it encouraged the Federal Government to introduce
in December 1991, the Construction Industry Reform Strategy, contained several
reform initiatives in labour relations, but an important component of which was the
establishment of the Construction Industry Development Agency (CIDA). CIDA had
the role of stimulating and measuring progress on implementation of the agreement
and evaluating its effect on productivity. CIDAs life was fixed and ended in June
1995.
Hence, the clear message from at least two countries is that the construction industry
is an essential sector of the economy. Its efficiency and effectiveness in providing
buildings (capital works or assets) is crucial to the industries and to clients in the rest
of the economy. The drive for greater productivity and competitiveness throughout
these economies cannot overlook the construction industry (Stoeckel and Quirke
1992; Leonard 1992). External forces throughout the economy are driving change and
clients are responding to these forces by demanding design that is more effective, and
a more efficient delivery and construction of its buildings. The industry, and
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particularly its professions, has been put on notice that they must improve their
performance.
10 20 % saving;
5 15% saving;
1 10% saving.
The authors believe that cost savings are an important part of the complex equation
that contributes to the quality, value and effectiveness of a project. The potential of
these early stages, in terms of processes, methods and techniques making a substantial
contribution to the decision making, is vast. However, it has to be a broad-based
process that delivers the following benefits:
Broad discussion of the proposed activities within the new facility by all the
participants.
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STAGE
PROCESS
STRATEGY
STRATEGIC
INFORMATION
SYSTEM
ANALYSIS
ACTIVITIES
Formulate
Strategic Objectives
STRATEGY
CHOICE
STRATEGY
IMPLEMENTATION
ANALYSIS:
external environment
internal skills and resources
stakeholder needs and
expectations
Techniques such as
Brainstorming, Delphi,
Scenario writing and others.
Evaluations such as soft
systems, operations
research, decision-making
software, etc.
V
I
S
I
O
N
Following organisational
requirements and policies.
STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT
The strategic planning/management literature is extensive and has grown in the last
twenty years. The strategic management process has been described by many authors,
too numerous to review here. Porter (1985), Quinn, et al (1988), Thompson and
Strickland (1993) capture the essence of strategic approaches and concepts. A
diagrammatic summary of the strategic process is given in Figure 1 (Viljoen 1991).
This provides a framework for the work presented in this paper.
This framework has guided the authors in the design and development of their model
for the pre-briefing stage of a project. The two initial stages identified, strategy
analysis and strategy choice, form the backbone of the methodology developed by the
authors. Since the focus of this research is identify alternative strategies and make a
choice the third part of the strategic process, strategy implementation, has been
excluded from the research at the present time. The implementation stage proceeds
into the briefing, design development and construction stages.
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STRATEGIC CRITERIA
We have developed ten strategic-level criteria in Stratbuild for the assessment of
alternatives. They are each designed to encapsulate a characteristic of the alternative
being scored on the neural network. The lack of detail (or abstraction) of the named
criteria may be criticised as being too imprecise. However, it must be recognised that
this evaluation is being carried out during the strategic or formative stages, where
options or alternative strategies are emerging and the level of detail in them is not
exhaustive. Therefore, the authors have tried to equate their criteria with the general
level of information available for each strategy. It would seem unprofitable to score
alternative strategies on criteria that reflect a level of accuracy which can only be
obtained later in the process when more information is available. The authors also
recognise that some of the criteria may overlap with others. However, this is only a
problem when such overlap exceeds the range of different interpretations that users
put on each one, and our experience makes us confident that it does not. The ten
criteria, with brief explanation of each, follows:
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Very Clear
29%
29%
42%
43%
29%
57%
72%
72%
43%
58%
Clear
43%
57%
29%
43%
43%
29%
14%
14%
29%
14%
No View
14%
14%
29%
14%
14%
14%
14%
14%
14%
14%
Not Clear
14%
0
0
0
14%
0
0
0
14%
14%
Very Unclear
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
But, thankfully, a limited number of simulations and workshops to date has shown us
that a high level of acceptance and understanding of the criteria exists amongst
participants. We know this because the criteria (and other aspects of the process) are
always monitored by an exit survey of all participants.
A recent exit evaluation survey showed the following opinions from participants using
the criteria in the Stratbuild software. The number of participants in the workshop
was not large, but the authors believe it represents the generally high level of
understanding of the criteria by most users to date. The responses indicate a trend
towards having a very clear or clear understanding of the criteria in most instances.
Naturally, more data is required from future users to confirm this initial data and the
authors will continue to monitor understanding of the criteria in every application.
The authors have reviewed the recent literature on client briefing factors, project
goals, and we have then placed such goals within our ten criteria noted above. Many
early works in the 1980s looked at time, cost and quality, whereas later work has
tended to be more detailed and comprehensive in its coverage. Moreover, some of
this literature has built upon earlier work and many of the factors have been applied at
different stages of the design and construction process. Also, a large number are
found in the expanding field of procurement of construction projects. Masterman and
Gameson (1994) contain a useful review of client needs criteria by a number of
authors in work. Nevertheless, all goals that were found can be described in terms of,
or accommodated by our ten criteria, as shown in Table 2.
Note that some factors such as life cycle costs may be taken under two headings:
responsiveness to effort capturing the economical part of the concept and the need to
conserve and be energy efficient is captured under correctness. This demonstrates the
overlap between some factors/criteria. Improvability and autonomy seem to be the
missing strategic criteria from this procurement literature.
CONCLUSION
The strategic stages of a project must engage the client and the design team in a
broader evaluation of the need for a project during the strategic stage of its
development. The process should provide an opportunity for integrated activities
involving a number of stakeholders in the project. It should attempt to give reality to
the objective that resources expended at the start of a project are better investments for
improving the quality and effectiveness of the final project. Simply, this is the stage
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where most of the significant decisions are made and it is important that the client and
design consider all the realistic alternative strategies.
Table 2: Strategic criteria and client needs factors
Stratbuild criteria
Responsiveness to effort
Effectiveness
Effectiveness (Contd)
Likelihood
Improvability
Permissiveness
Correctness
Speed
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Autonomy
Safety
In some cases, this may be a construction project of some kind. In others a better
solution may be a non-construction solution such as outsourcing/sub-contracting,
delegation, privatisation or some other organisational arrangement. We have to
recognise that for the foreseeable future in an environment where we need to
maximise the use of our existing resources the best solution to satisfy a clients needs
may not always be a built, rebuilt, extended or renovated facility of any kind.
This stage can be considerably improved if we develop more universal and succinct
evaluation methods, and our ten criteria are offered as a contribution to this aim. We
believe they have the potential to simplify, clarify and therefore improve the prebriefing process.
Whatever approach is used recent research highlights the need for better approaches,
new skills and meaningful comments from users and facility managers (who are often
ignored) and a greater sensitivity to client needs. We also need to recognise that some
design professionals and facility managers have a contribution to make at this strategic
level of decision making. This is because they have significant specialised expertise
in built facilities to guide clients at this stage of the decision making process. Design
professionals cannot claim this position as a right, but it is a possibility when such
people can make useful contributions to strategic decision making that lead to better
solutions to the clients needs. If they keep abreast of current methodological
developments they just might do so!
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