Collaborative integrated team project delivery – where to from here?

Purpose This paper reviews collaborative integrative construction project delivery form practice over the last 25 years. It provides a summary of emerging trends to point to where this field of study is heading. Design/methodology/approach The paper is a reflective focussed commentary on prior published research undertaken triangulated by validation discussion with numerous academic colleagues and expert practitioners over a 25-year period. Findings Integrated collaborative project delivery forms have moved over the past quarter century from traditional delivery that is characterised by fragmented and opportunistically self-serving approach towards one in which an integrated united team of project owner and non-owner participants collaborate as an integrated team to deliver a best-for-project outcome. They do so by taking a markedly different approach to the traditional project owners' hands-off, fragmented and often adversarial behavioural approach. The mechanisms to do so are explained and illustrated in this paper. Research limitations/implications The paper’s implications are to provide researchers, scholars and practitioners in the construction project delivery field with a picture of how the integrated collaborative project delivery form has evolved and operated. Its source of research references provides a 25-year perspective and is useful in any discussion of the delivery form for future case studies. It is limited to a detailed discussion of integrated project delivery/alliancing forms. Practical implications The paper provides tips and summaries of mechanisms that are vital for integrated collaborative project delivery. Social implications Alliancing in Australia and New Zealand is primarily used on social and engineering infrastructure projects. Originality/value Few research papers have brought together findings for this field of study over a quarter-century timeframe. Researchers should find this paper valuable as a historical artefact that helps place their case study work in context with the field’s development.