Collaborative risk management within the design phase of green buildings

Abstract

Construction projects are ambitious in terms of the complexity of structures, design requirements, information flow, stakeholder integration and technological integration especially in green building projects. Consequently, management of these projects is increasingly integrated. However, risk management has taken little account of these emergent interdisciplinary and iterative trends in the building design process. This leads to poor risk management outcomes, where traditional risk management practices that rely on allocating risks to specific individual entities are not able to accommodate the collaborative facets. As part of a comprehensive research into Collaborative Risk Management (CRM) implementation to green building projects, a case study strategy was adopted using a mixed-method approach to seek practical solutions on how stakeholders in collaborative design teams can manage inseparable risks within their interdependent tasks. Experienced practitioners were interviewed regarding their current practices and techniques. With the view of exploring interrelationships among stakeholders, risks and tasks; a Dependency Structure Matrix (DSM) approach was used. To manage inseparable risk, stakeholders suggested regular team meetings including the client, proper and timeous information sharing with proportional risk sharing approaches. To regulate the sub-minimal information to proceed with tasks because of inexperience stakeholders, all stakeholders should get GB accreditation training and have engagements that can benchmark performance. The project should have a shared insurance cover that will balance the risks fairly between stakeholders; in absence of bad faith; leading to a reasonable price; qualitative performance and the minimization of disputes. This will dedicate specific contingency budgets and reserve margins to each risk area. Also, use a project risk manager to evaluate risk, identify potential cost impacts and develop contingency plans