Partnering In Europe - Incentive Based Alliancing For Projects by Scott, B at Construction Books Direct

This handbook provides a practical guide for creating and implementing project-specific alliances, primarily for engineering construction activities for private-sector clients. The usefulness of this handbook is not confined to this audience and it will have application in many areas of the building and construction industry.

Review of this title :

This is a practical guide for creating and implementing project-specific alliances primarily for the private-sector clients. However, client organisations such as the Ministry of Defence; National Health Service and Public/Private Partnerships generally will find this handbook very useful in their procurement strategies.

This is an excellent handbook that deals with an extremely important subject area for the future efficiency of the European construction industry. Examples are drawn from actual alliances to illustrate many of the key points and principles that are covered in the handbook. Easy to read and digest this document succinctly deals with the complex issues that are involved in forming project-specific alliances. The handbook is divided into two parts. Part One covers the process of understanding the concept of partnering/alliancing; Part Two contains a very useful implementation tool kit that can be used on any project that intends to adopt a formal collaborative approach to project management. The brief guide to the alliance implementation process is particularly useful and well cross-referenced to other sections in the text. The book also contains a very useful bibliography, glossary of terms and further practical information in the appendices.

One of the key concepts in the strategy developed by Bob Scott and his team is that alignment between the parties is of crucial importance when considering alliancing. The text identifies important concepts and factors that will be required to achieve this vital alignment. For example, a formal mechanism to achieve this crucial alignment being the use of a financial incentive scheme. The construction of an example scheme is explained in a concise manner. However, without owner and contractor alignment alliances will fail, if there is no alignment of objectives there is no point in continuing.

This and other areas are covered by the toolkit together with the use of clear and concise flowcharts and diagrams to explain complex interfaces and organisation structures. Official government procurement and legal issues dealing with project-specific alliances are also covered in a clear and concise manner. The importance of smaller organisations within an alliance is also recognised, with their ability to inculcate unique high value-adding operations that can have a major influence on the success or failure of a project (without them being the highest value contracts within the project). This issue can sometimes be overlooked when perceived 'premier league' contractors are involved in alliances.

However, the success of alliance projects is fundamentally dependent on the relationships formed between the different parties, both at corporate level and within the alliance project teams. I feel that a handbook of this nature could have benefited from a section on 'national cultural attitudes', in a business context, (examples of attitudes within the various EU member states) to alliances in terms of the national characteristics of, say, an alliance between British and other European alliance partners. That is, differing expectations and business protocols. This would have been a useful insight considering the multi-national team membership that was involved in producing this excellent guide.

In addition, the text includes quotations, within the executive summary, to emphasise the ethos of the subject of starting an alliance.
One additional quotation could have been utilised to emphasise, for example, the importance of the cultural aspects of change. 'There is nothing more difficult to carry out or more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things. For the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order and only lukewarm defenders in those who would profit from the new order', Machiavelli (1540). This practical handbook is an excellent contribution to the important aspects of forming and the successful implementation of project-specific alliances that will serve other procurement strategies. For example; Procure 21; Prime Contracting and PFI procurement concepts, in addition to its target audience. The European Construction Institute task force 23 and its chairman, Bob Scott, are to be commended for their contribution to knowledge in the publication of this excellent document.

Reviewed By : David Stockdale MBA, FCIOB.