Understanding early contractor involvement (ECI) procurement forms

It is widely accepted that contractors have much potential valuable advice to offer at the front-end of project development. This concept is sometimes called early contractor involvement (ECI) and encompasses various relationship-based project procurement (RBP) forms. These are currently being globally adopted and adapted and at times this results in misunderstanding of the finer grained nuances between the forms. This often results in participants having unrealistic expectations of team behaviours and relationships between project parties, particularly what is expected of the project manager and lead sponsor accountable for project delivery. Unrealistic expectations may trigger perceived project failure. This lack of understanding of behavioural expectations of ECI form inhibits those who deliver projects from performing to expectation. Clients choosing an ECI project procurement form would benefit from a clearer definition of behavioural expectations. This paper attempts to set a conceptual behavioural framework for ECI that helps us better establish a way of understanding what ECI and RBP procurement forms offer.