Effective and efficient briefing in public private partnership projects in the construction industry

Abstract

Public private partnership (PPP) is widely used in construction projects. Private companies involved in 'design, financing, construction, ownership and/or operation of a public sector utility or service' are called Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) in facilities development. However, the briefing process in PPP projects has been largely overlooked in terms of its importance, although decisions made at this process have a far-reaching influence throughout a project's life cycle. Briefing is the process by which a client informs others of his or her needs, aspirations and desires, either formally or informally, and a brief is a formal document which sets out a client's requirements in detail at the end of the briefing process. This research reviews the literature regarding PPP used in the construction industry. Three gaps in the scope of the existing research on PPP in construction are identified. They are as follows: (1) A systematic research study of the briefing process of PPP projects and a comparative study of the briefing process between PPP projects and conventional projects has not yet been fully studied; (2) The factors affecting the success of briefing of PPP projects have not been addressed; and (3) An framework for guiding the briefing process of PPP projects needs to be developed. According to addressing these gaps, the aim of this research therefore is: To develop a framework for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the briefing process in PPP projects in the construction industry. The following four objectives are designed to achieve the above aim: (1) To identify the critical success factors (CSFs) for the briefing process of PPP projects in the construction industry; (2) To assess the importance levels of the CSFs in the briefing process of PPP projects; (3) To conduct a comparative analysis on the CSFs in different locations; (4) To develop a framework for guiding the briefing process of PPP projects in construction. These objectives have been achieved through a literature review, interviews, questionnaire surveys, and action research conducted in Hong Kong and Australia, all targeting construction projects. Findings from the research are categorised into four areas: (1) the identification of total 48 critical factors in 4 aspects (i.e. procurement-related factors, stakeholder-related factors, risk-related factors, and finance-related factors), which are important for the success of briefing process in PPP projects in construction projects. The identification process were based on literatures and the investigation of differences between PPP projects and conventional projects at the briefing processes and characteristics of PPP projects at briefing process; (2) the development of a systematic framework for guiding the briefing process of PPP projects, which consists 3 groups (i.e. the timeline of the briefing process and the process for writing a brief, and steps of briefing, and deliverables in the briefing); (3) the validation of the systematic framework by conducting through examining two real cases (Hong Kong and Australia). The research has contributed to new knowledge and improved understanding of the briefing process in PPP projects in construction in at two areas: (1) The collection of ranked and grouped CSFs and identification of characteristics of the briefing process of PPP projects can help both the public sector and the private sector become more aware of their responsibilities and the specific issues, which are important to the briefing process in a PPP project; (2) The systematic framework can be used as a reference for systematic consideration of doing briefing by PPP project management teams in construction and ensure that important procedures and issues will not be overlooked.