Tool summary

Name of the tool
Partnering

Description of the tool
Partnering is a management guidance concept to assist partners to work together to share information and to create a more open form of working practice. To be most effective partnering should be applied to the whole business process, consultants, contractors and subcontractors as well as support services such as lawyers, purchasing departments and accountants.

"Partnering in construction is not a neatly defined concept which can be deposited in a single pigeon hole to be extracted when required. At its loosest it can mean no more than an informal agreement between participants to eradicate the adversarial aspects of their respective cultures and substitute an ethos of good will and cooperation. At its strictest it can denote a sophisticated contractually significant matrix regulating successive contracts over a long period. ..the specific aims of partners differ from relationship to relationship, and this is reflected in the arrangements adopted, the differences are largely of degree. In each instance, the partners desire to work together, in a spirit of cooperation, so as to maximise efficiency and profit " Critchlow (1998).

Constructing Excellence (a UK government supported organisation) promotes partnering as best practice, and has outlined the stages required for a construction partnership as
(i) a commitment to the concept
(ii) self-assessment of the project prior to the partnership
(iii) selection of partners
(iv) the mutual objective of all the partners
(v) agreement on a project resolution mechanism
(vi) agreement of key performance indicators (KPI) for assessment of continuous improvement
(vii) contractual agreements for the partnership and procurement procedures
(viii) an agreement of risks and rewards related to the projects development e.g. targets may relate to KPIs, cost, time etc.
The principles of Agenda 21 and sustainability in construction have come to the fore through the scheme.

Specific topic
A concept for construction management best practice (the concept is also applicable to other industries/sectors)

Sector/s of use

Waste	Energy	Water	Transport	Green/Blue	Building & Land use
1	1	1	1	1	1

M - main sector, 1 - sub sector and 0 - n/a

Scale of applications

Component	Building	Neighbourhood	City	Region
0	0	0	0	0