Built on Collaboration

Front page of Australia's main business newspaper, The Australian Financial Review, last week, was the story that, to help state governments deliver high-risk infrastructure projects, Treasury officials are developing a national set of principles for 'alliance projects'. This would mean that, on publicly funded works, governments would share the burden of cost blow-outs and delays with contractors.

Often called a "pain-share/blame-share" arrangement, alliance projects help both parties to pull together towards the common goal, without the commercial barriers, red-tape and finger-pointing that can slow things down. Without question, this is a positive move and should fast-track the complex projects needed to boost the economy, while ensuring optimum use of public funds. Whether other countries that are also in a hurry to push through stimulus package-driven infrastructure projects follow a similar path remains to be seen.

With an alliance project, it's only logical to use an online collaboration platform. In line with the spirit of the contract, parties working together with common goals should use common systems. Using a project collaboration system facilitates a culture of trust, supported by transparency and information sharing – both major contributors to project success.

On top of this, I can think of at least three reasons to use an online collaboration system on projects of this type...

1. These are large, complex projects that will involve dozens of companies, sharing hundreds of thousands of documents and mails. They should be using a collaboration system anyway!
2. As well as streamlining communication between parties, both entities (and indeed everyone on the project) benefit from the gains in efficiency. What would be the point in one party using a best-in-class online collaboration system to manage their project information, while the other gets buried in paper documents?
3. In the event of dispute, the audit trail on a collaboration system can often help to resolve the matter quickly, without souring the relationship by resorting to litigation or arbitration.

Has anyone (successful or unsuccessful) worked on an Alliance project? Be interested to know your views regarding the client-contractor relationship.

Labels: Global trends, Good practice