Characteristics of Integrated Project Delivery and Contract Strategies

Selecting a project’s delivery and contracting strategy (PDCS) is a key owner decision. It defines the roles and responsibilities of all project participants, how the owner will pay for services, and the overall project execution framework.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the process of selecting the appropriate project delivery and contracting strategy was hampered by an incomplete set of alternatives, poorly defined selection criteria, and the absence of quantitative analysis to guide good decision making. RT-165’s mandate was to address the above issues and “to develop a tool that will assist owners in selecting a project delivery method and contracting strategy for their projects, based on their project objectives.”

RT-165 delivered on this mandate by defining and describing an expanded set of 12 PDCS alternatives, developing a structured procedure for making this critical project decision, and creating a spreadsheet tool to support this decision which:

• Incorporates the expanded set of alternatives for consideration
• Encourages decision makers to identify and focus on the project objectives and other critical success factors early in project development
• Enhances insight into PDCS selection through systematic consideration of all decision variables
• Provides a defensible rationale for PDCS selection based on quantification of alternatives

The PDCS selection procedure and tool should be used as a standard. The procedure and tool are easy to use and ultimately align owner project objectives with the PDCS selected for capital projects.