Owner's Tool for Project Delivery and Contract Strategy Selection
Project delivery and contract strategies (PDCS) define the roles and responsibilities of the parties involved in a project and how the owner will pay for services. PDCS also establishes the project execution framework.
The PDCS Research Team has developed a structured and integrated procedure for owners in making this important project management decision. The procedure focuses on the owner’s project objectives and the project execution environment, and incorporates a quantitative assessment of 12 PDCS alternatives in a decision support tool.
This newly developed owner’s tool can be used as a decision support system. It has the following capabilities:
- Expands the list of PDCS alternatives that are available to owners in the decision-making process.
- Produces reliable results.
- Enhances insight into the problem of selecting a PDCS.
- Harmonizes delivery systems with contract strategies and relates these to the owner’s project objectives.
- Provides a defensible rationale for PDCS selection.
This research summary describes the work by the Project Delivery and Contract Strategy Research Team in developing the PDCS tool. CII members are encouraged to download the PDCS tool (an Excel spreadsheet) from the CII Web site at construction-institute.org.
RT-165 developed a PDCS selection procedure which incorporates the following six variables: (RS165-1, p. 4)
- PDCS alternatives
- Project objectives
- Selection factors
- Analysis approach
- Relative effectiveness values each alternative with respect to each selection factor
- Compensation approaches
A two-phase data collection campaign, which consisted of both questionnaires and in-person workshops, resulted in the identification and definition of: (RS165-1, p. 4)
- 12 Project Delivery and Contract Strategy (PDCS) alternatives
- 20 selection factors that drive the selection of the appropriate PDCS
The PDCS selection procedure and decision support tool were tested and validated on 12 projects contributed by RT-165 team members. (RS165-1, p. 11) The testing found:
- The result obtained was appropriate (for the project being tested.)
- Sometimes the result obtained suggest a different approach (versus that actually used by the project.)
- The procedure and tool are an improvement over current practices.
- The procedure and tool provide insight into the selection of PDCS for projects.
