Engaging Stakeholders Early

The RPDMs are a way to make value co-creation more effective in the construction industry, while early stakeholder involvement has been named as a cornerstone for creating integrated teams that deliver that value. Early involvement in the project definition process aims to maximize the benefits and contributions received from management, engineering, design, and building capabilities. Furthermore, the stakeholders who work directly in integrated teams can provide insights into the building process required by the design requirements. The stakeholders can also help to identify solutions that can be most efficiently and effectively fit to the end product. In addition, early involvement allows the stakeholders to anticipate the upcoming project and make preparations, which can lead to a reduced cycle time.

The findings emphasize that one starting point for stakeholder involvement is to evaluate and understand the stakeholders from the perspective of the customer or to determine their relevance to the project. In carrying out this analysis, questions are asked about the positions, interests, influence, interrelations, networks, and the other characteristics of the stakeholders, with references to their past and present positions and also their future potential.

Construction projects are very similar to complex product systems that produce highly customized, engineering-intensive goods, which often require several producers to work together simultaneously. In such systems, it has been found that integrated solutions are an effective way to deliver products. Integrated solutions are combinations of products and services that address a customer's unique requirements throughout the life cycle, from development and design to systems integration and maintenance. The challenge of moving into integrated solutions is to create project delivery systems that can package and deliver solutions to meet customer needs.

System integrators are able to ensure that the designers and contractors can produce designs and solutions that conform to the overall customer and stakeholder needs. Construction has two separate system integrators: the main engineer in the design phase and the main contractor in the construction phase. Furthermore, while the main engineers typically display capabilities in the regulatory framework and customer requirements, they often do not have the skills to integrate the subsystems and construction into a total system. Therefore, it is essential to involve the main contractors early in the project, because they are able to contribute to the design solutions, but they can also integrate the design solutions into the practical solutions and total system. In addition to the main engineer and contractor, there are multiple various stakeholders that have an impact on the project or are impacted by the project. Many of those stakeholders would have something to offer during the project definition process as well.

In our case project, there were 11 separate stakeholders connected to the project (Tables 1 and 2). Furthermore, the results show that 8 or 9 (if a "special" designer is needed) must be involved right from the beginning of the project definition phase. However, involvement may range from simple consultation or facilitation on design ideas or constraints to making the stakeholder fully responsible for the design of the systems, processes, or ensembles they will supply. Furthermore, one involved stakeholder may contribute to one project phase only, while another one may have a key role throughout the entire project's completion.

Due to the different roles and liabilities, various types of stakeholders can be identified. Based on the theoretical and empirical findings, we were able to recognize five different levels of stakeholders: primary, secondary, system integrators, tertiary, and external (Figure 6). The arrows in Figure 6 represent the main information flow between the levels.

Figure 6. The different levels of stakeholders.

The primary stakeholders consist of those stakeholders who are the direct recipients of the project, which would ultimately resolve a high-priority need. In our case, the customer is the natural representative of the primary level. The property manager and the construction consultant belong to the secondary level, which is composed of stakeholders who deliver or provide services to the primary level. In renovation projects, the primary and secondary levels comprise the development team (the grey circle on Figure 6). Briefly, the levels indicate that the customer has the high-priority needs, the property manager has the constraints (based on the accurate source data), and the construction consultant is the expert in project management.

In between the secondary and tertiary levels are the system integrators who must ensure that the specifications for each component, solution, subsystem, and interface in the whole project are compatible and align with the customer's needs. Therefore, the system integrators must be carefully selected, because they must be cooperative, and their position is crucial during the project's entire life cycle. In addition, this key role emphasizes the importance of early involvement. Our results indicate that the main contractor and main engineer are the ones who should act as the system integrators in renovation projects. In RPDM projects, there is always the core group, who possesses the greatest power in the project and its management. According to our results, we suggest that the development team and the system integrators should form the core group (the red and grey circles on Figure 6). They are also the parties who must sign the multi-party agreement.

The tertiary level focuses on the resources and input put into the project and solutions. In renovation, public authorities (especially the planning division), other engineers, subcontractors, and material suppliers are good examples of tertiary-level stakeholders. Because the tertiary level includes the most project resources (subcontractors and other engineers), it is probably the level that should be managed most carefully and wisely. Such resources may cause serious problems in bad situations. In addition, the large number of stakeholders and complicated tasks involved in the project definition process (e.g., project definition, consensus building, and objective setting) place heavy demands on facilitation and project management skills.

Moreover, there are external-level stakeholders in complex projects. The external level does not have direct control over resources, which is the difference between the external and the tertiary levels. However, the external level has the possibility of influencing the project positively or negatively. For example, the neighbors can support or resist the project. Sponsors, in addition, can have some effects on the project funding.

In summary, the major managerial implications of this study are that the project stakeholders should be identified and involved early in order to maximize value co-creation. On the other hand, it is crucial to understand that the projects contain different levels of stakeholders depending on their salience in the whole project. Therefore, they should be coordinated differently, but also given the opportunity to act as they see fit in a way that is best for the project. This especially emphasizes the importance of the system integrators. The findings also indicate that the benefits of early involvement cannot be fully exploited if the construction industry does not start to use RPDMs, which tend to improve collaboration between design and construction by their nature.