Experiences with Partnering - A Case Study on the Development Phase.

Collaborative approaches to projects are increasingly prominent in the Norwegian construction industry. Project Partnering is one means to collaborative project delivery that is progressively more used. This paper examines how the three project actors: client, contractor, and technical advisors, experienced cooperation in the development phase in a partnering construction project. The case under scrutiny was two jointly developed public projects. The case methodology utilised a survey to collect empirical evidence, and the researchers collected data from 37 respondents distributed among the three actors. The results show that the contractors had the most positive experience, while the client’s respondents were the most negative. However, the response from the survey suggests that all the actors were happy with the cross-disciplinary cooperation. Furthermore, the response from the client indicates that their frustration was mainly due to struggles within the client organisation, and not with the other actors.