CII Value of Best Practices Report

Since the establishment of the Construction Industry Institute (CII) in 1983, its industry members and academic researchers have collaborated on research to improve the cost effectiveness of capital project delivery. CII research on the industry’s processes and methods has generated 14 best practices, many of which have been adopted by the industry at large. The CII Best Practices are defined as “process[es] or method[s] that, when executed effectively, [lead] to enhanced project performance.” To qualify as a CII Best Practice, a practice must be sufficiently proven through extensive industry use and/or validation. The 14 CII Best Practices are as follows:

1. Alignment
2. Benchmarking and Metrics
3. Change Management
4. Constructability
5. Disputes Prevention & Resolution
6. Front End Planning
7. Implementation of CII Research
8. Lessons Learned
9. Materials Management
10. Partnering
11. Planning for Start-up
12. Quality Management
13. Team Building
14. Zero Accidents Techniques.

The last time the CII Benchmarking & Metrics Committee performed a comprehensive assessment of the CII Best Practices, it culminated in the 2003 Value of Best Practices (VBP) Report. The results of the 2003 study only addressed the value of eight of the CII Best Practices. This was mainly due to insufficient data submitted regarding actual implementation of the practices. Further, while most respondents agreed that individual practices were valuable, assessing the impact of using multiple practices within the project environment has been limited to date. With these issues in mind, CII decided to launch a new member-wide data collection effort in order to form the basis for new analyses. In 2007, the Benchmarking & Metrics Committee formed a CII Value of Best Practices team to craft a new survey to better assess the value of best practices by incorporating lessons learned from earlier benchmarking efforts.