The Relationship between Project Delivery Method and Project Work Environment and Collaboration

Almost anyone who has worked daily on a construction site or field office knows the feeling of arriving on site for another day of work, and seeing the vehicle of someone that works for one of the other parties of the construction contract, and having their stomach muscles tighten in anticipation of the confrontation that seems to happen every day. There may not be a particular issue that appears destined to result in this seemingly inevitable conflict, but the working environment on the project is so poor that any little disagreement or inconvenience will almost surely escalate into a major confrontation. There are many possible factors at work here: personalities, prejudices, third parties (such as utilities), constructability issues, etc. One of the most subtle, yet persistent factors, is the delivery system being employed on the project. Different delivery systems do create different work environments and levels of collaboration, but the single biggest contributor to stress in the construction workplace is whether the contractor feels that there is enough money in the contract to ensure that, with proper execution of the work and barring a major calamity, the company will emerge from the project with a profit — or at least without a loss.