Skill development for innovative procurement environments in construction

As a means to increase efficiency in the construction industry the Australian Government and industry have identified Project alliancing as part of a new innovative procurement environment. Project alliancing requires parties to form relationships and work cooperatively to provide a more complete service in the construction industry. This is a significant cultural change for the construction industry, with its well-known adversarial nature of traditional contracting. Project alliancing offers enormous benefits, but the interim results of this research indicate the Australian construction industry needs to have new skills and develop new attitudes to effectively participate in the new relationship environment. Research was conducted over two years investigating the cultural environment of a project alliance - using the National Museum of Australia as a case study. This research identified that there is a high reliance on relationship building, interpersonal, cognitive and intrapersonal competencies. Whilst further research is needed to confirm these results the authors then looked at how the skills identified as critical in a project alliance environment are currently interpreted in education policy related to one member of the construction team - the architect. An examination of policy development over the last fifty years highlights potential barriers to skill development in this area.