Improving alliance projects through facilitation

Alliance and other collaborative project delivery models such as integrated project delivery (IPD) represent a solution to decrease the fragmentation in the construction industry. New technology such as building information modelling (BIM) is also claimed to introduce more integration into the design and construction processes. However, an intensified collaboration is required for successful alliancing and BIM processes. The intensified collaboration does not seem to occur automatically after committing to a contract, but might often require help in the daily project activities. Facilitation is an activity used in other industries to help in accomplishing tasks by concentrating on the socialprocesses of groups performing the activities. Currently, very little is known about the facilitation in the context of construction projects. Facilitation literature suggests that facilitation can support collaborative task performance with three elements: 1) the management of group process, 2) the management of content, and 3) facilitator’s substantive expertise. With a qualitative case study approach, we studied what kind of facilitation occurs in a Finnish alliance project and how current facilitation methods meet the project needs. The results suggest the presence of all the three facilitation elements, but also suggest possibilities for improvement. The results connect facilitation literature to collaborative construction projects. The empirical analysis also offers practicalsuggestions on how to apply facilitation in construction projects efficiently.