Why design-build is Hard.. and every Owner should insist

The Wilkinson Project Group

The cultural headwinds have always been on the bow of the so-called design-build movement. It took nearly 50 years of cultural warfare for the various participants to see their integrative potential.

That truth notwithstanding, it is easy to see how the cultural divide is built into the DNA of the various designers, engineers, builders, salespeople, financial engineers, business managers….; they are all different people with different world views and ways of behaving.

Unfortunately as in work and in greater life, people have an affinity for their group (sometimes known as the tribe in the social sciences, and known as a silo in business planning lingo)

Even if the prospective workgroup is able to conquer its interpersonal differences, there are additional hurdles with respect to standards of practice:

• inductive thinking versus deductive thinking

• mixed up levels of abstraction at various stages of the problem-solving process

• different ways of expression (e.g. graphical and text…)

• different vocabulary

BUT

If you are in the position spending real money, you would never order a kit of parts and try to assemble your vehicle in the garage unless you were a hobbyist (or a little crazy)

Integration of the process and work products is critical to so-called project success:

“it ain't a pretty.. If it don't work”

Take a look at George Wilkinson’s report card for "Organizational Fitness" before you spend money