A value approach to project briefing

Abstract

Project Briefing is carried out after Strategic Briefing in the feasibility stage of the development project and is the second stage of the briefing process. The primary objective of Project Briefing is to develop a project brief which forms the basis of design for construction projects. The lack of formal assessment of client’s needs and requirements in the briefing process has been identified as an issue of concerns during an international research project into current briefing practice. A methodology which utilises a Value Management (VM) approach to systematically identify and clarify client’s requirements in the briefing process is developed successfully in this study. The focus of this paper is on how this method can be used for Project Briefing. This methodology comprises eight main activities, Time/Cost/Quality Analysis, User Flow Analysis, Functional Space Analysis, Adjacency Matrix, Outline Room Data Sheets and Functional Performance Specification, Creativity Session, Outline Budget Guidelines and Procurement Route Analysis. Whilst the benefits of using the recommended methodology have been confirmed through a focus group meeting, further research work is needed to verify the benefits of this methodology in practice and to make further improvements. The authors sincerely hope that the recommended methodology will be tested in a number of real life projects in the near future.