DBIA National Webinar: Selecting a Project Delivery Method: New Digital Tool to Guide Owners

Design-build is all about collaboration, and of course, DBIA is, too. That’s why we’re excited to give you a preview of work happening now led by The University of Washington’s College of Built Environments for the Charles Pankow Foundation to create valuable new resources for design-build Owners and practitioners.  We’re confident these tools will help teams in all sectors successfully deliver Design-Build Done Right® projects.

DBIA will offer a webinar on February 8th, providing an early look at both the new online Project Delivery Assessment Tool and a new series of Design Management Guides to be delivered by the Pankow Foundation.

This online tool allows owners to assess their ability to deliver projects using design-build. As we all know, design-build is only as successful as the Owners who implement it, and Design-Build Done Right® best practices define the importance of a culture of collaboration. Successful design-build is much more than just a single-source contract.

This assessment tool project will investigate the impact that Owner organization characteristics such as their decision-making culture have on project success and how different Owner organizational structures and cultures in terms of decision-making relate to the successful use of different delivery methods. This research project will develop a digital tool for Owners to assess their decision-making profile and understand the challenges and alignments between this profile and project delivery for improved selection and management of project delivery methods. The goal is to provide a mirror for Owners to look at themselves and their organization to determine whether they’re capable of doing design-build or better served using another project delivery method to execute their project.

For teams ready to deliver design-build projects, these guides will provide targeted guidance in five sectors on delivering successful design-build projects by properly managing the design phase. The new guides will focus on these sectors: water/wastewater, highways, federal, aviation and industrial.

Comprehensive industry data is being collected for these guides by researchers at the University of Florida, Iowa State University and the University of New Mexico to compile guidance focused on the real-world challenges teams face in each sector. The Charles Pankow Foundation expects to release these guides at the end of the year.

Renee Cheng, FAIA, Dean of the College of Built Environments, University of Washington