Much of the material in this Operations Manual is devoted to describing the manner in which the day-to-day operations of project management, project engineering, and site superintendence are carried out on behalf of the Company. For the most part, the language of the manual assumes a lump sum, general contracting form of project delivery, as well as a conventional set of relationships among the contracting parties.
Prior to the 1980s, the lump sum, general contracting form of project delivery was by far the most common. Throughout the decade of the 1980s, Construction Management with Guaranteed Maximum Price, Agency Construction Management, and other hybrid forms of construction management became very common. The primary motivator for the proliferation of construction management instead of lump sum general contracting essentially was the desire by owners to shorten the total design-construction process. The “construction management” system was therefore implemented in order to allow certain components of construction to proceed while other components were still on the drawing board.
Eventually, construction management fell out of favor in the eyes of many owners and design professionals—and even among some “construction managers.” The primary reason for this disenchantment is based upon fundamental misunderstandings with respect to the relationships among the parties. Owners and design professionals seem to have been “expecting” one set of relationships—because every project “feels” like every other one. These same individuals, however, drafted construction agreements that said something very different. The result was a rash of projects that experienced extreme cost overruns and even delays that exceeded the time that otherwise might have been consumed in the more conventional design-bid-build lump sum general contracts.
For these reasons (and to be fair to the design-build community, and for other reasons as well), owners and design professionals began to look for yet another project delivery method that might accomplish the objective of early-start fast-tracked construction while regaining “control” over changes, claims, delays, and even the finger-pointing between contractors and designers. Attention was focused in many circles to reconsider the Design-Build method of project delivery—but sometimes with new twists.
And so as the industry moved from the 1980s into the 1990s, as many owners and design professionals became disenchanted with the various forms of Construction Management for various reasons, the Design-Build project delivery method began to achieve a new status as the delivery method of choice among many owners and design professionals. As the 1990s have closed, and as we now move into the new century of construction in America, Design-Build has been gaining prominence in many circles, while losing stature in others. All other forms of project delivery are being given renewed consideration. The wishful thinking of the 1980s and 1990s with respect to dreams of claims avoidance seems to have given way to a sober acceptance of the simple fact that the best way to avoid claims and other similar problems is to be clear in our forms of agreement, to manage each aspect competently, and above all, to be fair in our dealings. If we can accomplish all of these things, the form of project delivery will have much less influence on the degree of problems that we will experience on our projects.
In order for us as professionals to be the most effective in managing our projects, we must begin with a thorough understanding of the various forms of contracting arrangements and the specified relationships among the contracting parties. From there, we should develop an adequate working knowledge of the practical realities of these relationships, and of the ways that they are managed—and mismanaged.
This section of the Operations Manual, then, goes on to describe the major types of project delivery methods in their basic forms. Following that, the general rights and responsibilities of the parties are summarized. Together, the information will form a backdrop against which all construction management objectives, applications, and activities will be applied.
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