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Concept Paper
Peer-Review Record

Understanding Collaboration in Integrated Forms of Project Delivery by Taking a Risk-Uncertainty Based Perspective

Adm. Sci. 2016, 6(3), 10; https://doi.org/10.3390/admsci6030010
by Derek Walker * and Beverley Lloyd-Walker
Reviewer 1:
Reviewer 2: Anonymous
Adm. Sci. 2016, 6(3), 10; https://doi.org/10.3390/admsci6030010
Submission received: 26 March 2016 / Revised: 6 July 2016 / Accepted: 25 July 2016 / Published: 1 August 2016
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Project Risk Management: Challenge Established Practice)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper offers an important conceptual insight into collaboration in complex project, in particular, how to cope with uncertainty. The RBP taxonomy conceptualized by the authors may offer a more structured way to understand and cope with uncertainty, known unknowns, as well as unknown unknowns. I would recommend this paper to be accepted. Nevertheless, to improve its readibility, I recommend some improvements as follows.

Line 20 to The results and conclusions: “The adaptation presents a hypothetical partnering and alliancing project collaboration map taken from a risk and uncertainty management perspective” do not answer directly the research question, How uncertainty can best be managed in complex projects?I would advice the authors to restate the resulst and conclusions from the answer to how uncertainty can best be managed which I think should be around figure 2 that elaborate how to do ‘coping’ or ‘managing’ uncertainty extending the 16 elements of RBP collaboration taxonomy.

Line 65 to 67, “This paper suggests ...”, What this paper refers to? Is it the paper the authors being presented? If yes, I would advise to change to “This paper departs from a point of view that ...” to avoid confusion with the conclusions of the paper.

Reading through Section, I do not understand what contribution this paper added to the previous work of RBP by [7]. Early in the abstract the authors stated that they reanalyzed transcibed recorded interviews with 50 subject matter experts but reading on Section 3, the authors explained what had been done in previous work in [7]. My suggestion, because any prior work related to RBP conceptualization was already discussed and mentioned in [7], why not use Line 177 to 184 to state the research method adopted/done for current paper. This will help the readers to move smoothly on section 4, which is the results of the re-analysed of the data/transcribed of [7] from risk-uncertainty perspective.

Author Response

Taking a Risk-Uncertainty Based Perspective on Understanding Collaboration in Integrated Forms of Project Delivery


Response to reviewers:

We thank both reviewers for their feedback and comments. We have substantially revised the paper. To do so with track changes would have proved confusing, as it would highlight where the many changes occurred. Instead we have provided the table below in which we list reviewer concerns and explain our response to each.


Reviewer 1

R1: Extensive editing of English language and style required. I would recommend this paper to be accepted. Nevertheless, to improve its readability, I recommend some improvements as follows. …

Response: We have taken several months to rewrite the paper so that it is clearer, typo-error free and aligned with required style and presentation.

R1: Line 20 to The results and conclusions: “The adaptation presents a hypothetical partnering and alliancing project collaboration map taken from a risk and uncertainty management perspective” do not answer directly the research question, “How uncertainty can best be managed in complex projects?” I would advise the authors to restate the results and conclusions from the answer to how uncertainty can best be managed which I think should be around figure 2 that elaborate how to do ‘coping’ or ‘managing’ uncertainty extending the 16 elements of RBP collaboration taxonomy.

Response: On reflection we agree that our meaning was not clear. This is mainly because we intended to use the example of the partnering V alliancing to illustrate how the two approaches can be seen to treat the elements that are related to managing uncertainty would be clear. We realised that another use of the visualisation tool (figure 3 in the original submission) could be to illustrate an ‘as is’ versus a ‘preferred’ situation as suggested in the Walker and Lloyd-Walker book where they explain the tool’s potential use for designed an adapted procurement approach or for benchmarking either across projects of a similar form or during a project delivery at key points in time. By making this change to both Figure 3 (now Figure 2) and the text relating to it we believe that our intention becomes much clearer and that it now better supports answering of the research question. 

R1: Line 65 to 67, “This paper suggests ...”, What this paper refers to? Is it the paper the authors being presented? If yes, I would advise to change to “This paper departs from a point of view that ...” to avoid confusion with the conclusions of the paper

Response: Again on reflection we see that our meaning was not clear and so we have rephrased that section (now line 70-85). It is now clear that the IPD approach has advantages when addressing  the research question ‘How can uncertainty best be managed in complex projects?’ and we trust now more clearly links the paper content with that research question and the paper title.  We believe that adding ‘while also taking advantage of opportunities that arise from uncertainty’ helps clarify this link.

R1: Reading through Section, I do not understand what contribution this paper added to the previous work of RBP by [7]. Early in the abstract the authors stated that they reanalyzed transcribed recorded interviews with 50 subject matter experts but reading on Section 3, the authors explained what had been done in previous work in [7]. My suggestion, because any prior work related to RBP conceptualization was already discussed and mentioned in [7], why not use Line 177 to 184 to state the research method adopted/done for current paper. This will help the readers to move smoothly on section 4, which is the results of the reanalysed of the data/transcribed of [7] from risk uncertainty perspective.

Response: We have clarified the contribution made. This has been done in the abstract ‘relationship based procurement (RBP) framework from taking a purely procurement theory focus to being applied in a risk-uncertainty project management theory domain’ and in lines 87-89. Again, in the conclusion, we highlight how this application of the existing RBP taxonomy has been extended by explaining how it can be applied in practice  from a risk and uncertainty perspective. This extends the use of the framework from that put forward by Walker and Lloyd-Walker in their book (reference 7) now reference 8 due to adding in Hodge as reference 7.


Reviewer 2 Report

Despite various declared objectives, this paper is largely concerned (in sections 3-7), with summarising reference 7, a research monograph published by the PMI.

Throughout, the style is inappropriately didactic and the paper is full of broad assertions, many of which are questionable or beg questions.

The characterisation of risk-uncertainty is actually quite superficial and questionable (eg 36,45-64,87-88, 440-444, 570-572), suggesting limited knowledge of the extensive literature in this area. Distinguishing between ‘coping’ and ‘managing’ – lines 87-88, 440-444, 446-448 is spurious and not useful. Also, the analysis doesn’t really go beyond assertions that some factors (elements) that facilitate collaboration also help with managing risk and uncertainty. To begin with, the paper really ought to refer to recent literature on project uncertainty (and risk) management and discuss the significant extent to which the value of collaboration in improving the management of project risk and uncertainty has already been explored. This would serve to clarify why a focus on collaboration is appropriate (and where it might not be), and what new insights the present paper offers (if any).  

 

The paper lacks clarity of focus and line of argument, not least because of the initial emphasis given to RQ1 (line 75 -no other research questions are set out in the paper), which is an extremely broad question taking us well beyond just the topic of collaboration. This is not helpful. Section 2 touches on a number of somewhat different issues, but lacks a clear line of argument to clarify the purpose and scope of the paper. Line 147 offers a particularly glib answer to RQ1, and anyway doesn’t explain the “visualisation tool”, although I think it is this “tool” that is presented towards the end of the paper in Figure 3 and the latter half of section 8 (which is mostly about forms of collaboration, and has little to say about the facilitation of risk/uncertainty management).

 

The title of the paper itself is puzzling implying a focus on understanding collaboration per se which I don’t think is the authors’ intent. To closer reflect the content of the paper, a more appropriate title might be: “Features of collaboration that can improve the management of project risk and uncertainty”. However, even with this title one would expect more detail on how particular features (elements) facilitate improvements, and of what kind.  

 

The paper relies excessively on (uncritically) describing material from [7], in particular the 16 ‘elements’. Some critical reflections on [7], and the particular ‘elements’ identified for use in defining a taxonomy of  RBPs is warranted.  

Lines 40-42 equate the [7] ‘relationship based procurement’ taxonomy with a ‘collaboration’ taxonomy without further explanation. It is unclear how the paper “extends” (line73), or “reframes” [7] as a “more general collaboration taxonomy” (line82,83), particularly as the paper is less about an actual taxonomy and mostly about the elements that might be used to define a taxonomy. Any differences in Figure 1 from RBP elements are not explained, and subsequent text just seems to summarise description of elements identified in [7] without doing much to discuss the relevance of these elements to facilitating risk/uncertainty management beyond some rather obvious points.  

 

The Abstract implies that the authors have “re-analysed transcribed recorded interviews with 50 subject matter experts…” Section 3 (rather miss-leading titled) implies this is not the case at all, since the text merely refers to what empirical analysis was undertaken as part of [7]. The abstract needs to reflect what the paper actually does, not miss-represent the analysis undertaken by the authors or and claims about what the paper achieves.

Section 3 starts with a paragraph that is repetitious of earlier text. A better paper structure would  be to follow an overview of the relevance of collaboration to enhancing risk/uncertainty management (see above), with a major section entitled “Elements of collaboration – findings from research by Walker and Lloyd-Walker” This section would contain much of section 3 (lines 163-184, lines 148-153, section 4, a tabulated summary of the 16 elements (replacing much of sections 4,5,6), something of Figure 3 and lines 500-541 (if still thought worth including), and section 8 (lines 440-465). A subsequent section(s) could then focus on consideration of managing risk and uncertainty. This would make it much clearer how the paper “extends” the work in [7] and the extent to which the paper contributes new knowledge.

Sections 5-7 seem mostly to be just summarising descriptions of the 16 elements from [7], often with no explicit links to facilitating risk and uncertainty management. The two quotes (lines 205-213 and 287-294) don’t add anything. Better focus on consideration of  elements and sub elements relevant to risk/uncertainty management was warranted. For example, provide critical discussion of the extent of overlap between elements 11-16 is appropriate with more explanation (eg lines 390-1, 395, 405-406).

Line 409 spell out PO – presumably project owner ?.

Line 410 mentions two labels for alliance type projects with no explanation – this is not helpful.

The middle part of Section 8 (page 11, Figure 2 and lines 467-499) is very weak and unconvincing. Figure 2 is not a “model”, it is a facile diagram and seems to have been plucked out of thin air. The sense of lines 468-479 is unclear. Lines 498-499 read like an unconvincing marketing brochure. This part of  section 8 just detracts further from the quality of the paper – drop it!

I take issue with nearly all of section 9. In particular the paper does not deliver what is claimed in lines 552- 556, 560, 578, 580. How has the paper “extended the range of ways the RBP taxonomy visualisation tool may be used …”? Lines 563-569 go off on another direction from the paper (and in any case have a rather narrow, glib characterisation of risk management ‘tools’).


Author Response

Taking a Risk-Uncertainty Based Perspective on Understanding Collaboration in Integrated Forms of Project Delivery

Response to reviewers:

We thank both reviewers for their feedback and comments. We have substantially revised the paper. To do so with track changes would have proved confusing, as it would highlight where the many changes occurred. Instead we have provided the table below in which we list reviewer concerns and explain our response to each.


Reviewer 2


Reviewer 2 (R2): 

Despite various declared objectives, this paper is largely concerned (in sections 3-7), with summarising reference 7, a research monograph published by the PMI.

Throughout, the style is inappropriately didactic and the paper is full of broad assertions, many of which are questionable or beg questions.

Response: 

To some extent it was inevitable that we needed to explain the 16 dimensions that were at the core of much of reference [7]. We have amended our wording of these sections to reflect the risk and uncertainty perspectives. This has been done because many readers may not have read the PMI monograph. We felt it necessary to not assume prior knowledge but rather to make the acknowledged source’s meaning clear while re-fining sections 4-7 in more of a critical style that makes it clear how the paper’s main theme fits the element descriptions. We also added considerably more critical evaluation of how these relate to the literature. As a result, several more references have been used to explain the relevance of this uncertainty management and opportunity advantage taking aspect.

This approach, we trust, now is not didactic or normative but illustrates more critically how the tool illustrated in Figure 2 (lines 538-9) can be used.  

R2: The characterisation of risk uncertainty is actually quite superficial and questionable (eg 36, 45-64,87, 88, 440-444, 570-572), suggesting limited knowledge of the extensive literature in this area. Distinguishing between ‘coping’ and ‘managing’ – lines 87-88, 440-444,446-448 is spurious and not useful. Also, the analysis doesn’t really go beyond assertions that some factors (elements) that facilitate collaboration also help with managing risk and uncertainty. To begin with, the paper really ought to refer to recent literature on project uncertainty (and risk) management and discuss the significant extent to which the value of collaboration in improving the management of project risk and uncertainty has already been explored. This would serve to clarify why a focus on collaboration is appropriate (and where it might not be), and what new insights the present paper offers (if any).

Response: 

We disagree that our comment in line 36 that ‘the term ‘risk management’ could be called ‘risk avoidance’. This is the gist of much of the literature on risk management that we cited and have expanded upon. We added ‘; in particular this is likely when considered from the perspective of many project owners.  to clarify any misunderstanding; we mean that all parties avoid risk but that project owners will have a particular interest in developing strategies to avoid risk. We have slightly amended this sentence to ‘In many ways the term ‘risk management’ could be called ‘risk avoidance’ when considered from the perspective of many risk averse project owners who seek to shift risks to the contractor ‘ and added the reference to Hodge who has written extensively on construction risk in PPP/BOOT and other infrastructure projects.

We had cited relevant literature in our discussion on coping and also on opportunity and uncertainty and thus do not understand why this reviewer is claiming that we have limited knowledge of the literature. We have now increased our critical discussion throughout, citing relevant references. These include some very recent papers and work from the perspective of uncertainty as a source of learning and capabilities of clients and others. We feel that we have linked collaboration with uncertainty management (or coping) supported by the extensive work of Davies’s research team, as well as work by Winch on capabilities. We feel, and trust, that our expanded discussion makes these links more clear than previously, as indicated by Reviewer 2. 

R2: The paper lacks clarity of focus and line of argument, not least because of the initial emphasis given to RQ1 (line 75 no other research questions are set out in the paper), which is an extremely broad question taking us well beyond just the topic of collaboration. This is not helpful. Section 2 touches on a number of somewhat different issues, but lacks a clear line of argument to clarify the purpose and scope of the paper. Line 147 offers a particularly glib answer to RQ1, and anyway doesn’t explain the “visualisation tool”, although I think it is this “tool” that is presented towards the end of the paper in Figure 3 and the latter half of section 8 (which is mostly about forms of collaboration, and has little to say about the facilitation of risk/uncertainty management).

Response: 

In order to remain focussed, this paper addressed only one research. Although broad, we feel the question is highly relevant and worth exploring in the context of this paper.

We acknowledge that the paper should be clearer and more focussed and have revised it accordingly. We accept the suggestion that perhaps Figure 2 could be removed, as it may appear distracting, and have deleted it. The main points made via the previous Figure 2 are retained and linked to the RBP framework and its usefulness in allowing visualisation of the elements that can be used to better understand what collaboration may offer in this particular context.  The revised Figure 2 ‘tool’ we feel now better explains our intent addressing Reviewer 1’s comment that it  was not being effectively used. Figure 1 has been redrawn to improve clarity and readability,  focusing specifically on the research question.

R2: The title of the paper itself is puzzling implying a focus on understanding collaboration per se which I don’t think is the authors’ intent. To closer reflect the content of the paper, a more appropriate title might be: “Features of collaboration that can improve the management of project risk and uncertainty”. However, even with this title one would expect more detail on how particular features (elements) facilitate improvements, and of what kind.

Response: Revisions made and explained above, and changes and explanations that follow, should make the title more understandable. We agree that it may not have been fully clear in the original version reviewed. This paper is about risk and uncertainty. Its aim is to demonstrate how IPD can be an improved approach by using a tool (as in new Fig 2).This is because of the elements the tool defines and way that it can reveal gaps thus identifying how collaboration can be effective in addressing risk and opportunities that may arise from understanding  IPD from a risk uncertainty perspective. We feel the title reflects are intent and the message the paper now delivers. We did make a slight change to the title to further clarify the paper’s intent.

R2: The paper relies excessively on (uncritically) describing material from [7], in particular the 16 ‘elements’. Some critical reflections on [7], and the particular ‘elements’ identified for use in defining a taxonomy of RBPs is warranted.

Response: It was inevitable that we needed to describe those 16 elements because they lie at the heart of the tool used in Figure 2. The emphasis has now been shifted to explain more clearly the application of this visualisation tool as one of several tools that can be applied. The original book  [7] did not elaborate on the use of the visualisation tool for gap analysis from a risk and opportunity management perspective; this is what is new in this paper. As such the aim was not to criticise [7] but to show how its use might be extended. In this way we provided a critical eye in how that tool’s use may be expanded. We have added the following to highlight this – “This aspect was only briefly referred to as a potential contribution by Walker and Lloyd-Walker [7] and so this paper extends their ideas in a specific way that relates to managing and coping with risk and uncertainty”.

R2: Lines 40- 42 equate the [7] ‘relationship based procurement’ taxonomy with a ‘collaboration’ taxonomy without further explanation. It is unclear how the paper “extends” (line73), or “reframes” [7] as a “more general collaboration taxonomy” (line 82,83), particularly as the paper is less about an actual taxonomy and mostly about the elements that might be used to define a taxonomy. Any differences in Figure 1 from RBP elements are not explained, and subsequent text just seems to summarise description of elements identified in [7] without doing much to discuss the relevance of these elements to facilitating risk/uncertainty management beyond some rather obvious points.

Response: We have now used the word ‘framework’ rather than ‘taxonomy’ because the emphasis is on how this tool may be used rather than what it describes. We have also stressed how it may be used in practice, in particular for identifying and addressing risk and uncertainty and feel that this is clearer now on how the work cited in [7] is extended and to some extent re-framed for that purpose.

The way that this paper explains the elements is more specifically directed at the purpose of the paper; it does not just reproduce those descriptions as they appear in [7].

R2: The Abstract implies that the authors have “reanalysed transcribed recorded interviews with 50 subject matter experts…” Section 3 (rather misleading title) implies this is not the case at all, since the text merely refers to what empirical analysis was undertaken as part of [7]. The abstract needs to reflect what the paper actually does, not misrepresent the analysis undertaken by the authors or and claims about what the paper achieves.

Response: We did in fact re-read the transcripts. For this paper we have changed the wording to ‘reviewing’ to correct any implication that we recoded the entire transcript data. We do not agree that the abstract mis-represents what we have said we have done. We added ‘It extends analysis to focus on risk and uncertainty’ to clarify that this is the extended scope, rather than to indicate that the model/taxonomy/framework has been reanalysed.

R2: Section 3 starts with a paragraph that is repetitious of earlier text. A better paper structure would be to follow an overview of the relevance of collaboration to enhancing risk/uncertainty management (see above), with a major section entitled “Elements of collaboration – findings from research by Walker and Lloyd-Walker” This section would contain much of section 3 (lines 163-184, lines 148-153, section 4,a tabulated summary of the 16 elements (replacing much of sections 4,5,6), something of Figure 3 and lines 500-541 (if still thought worth including), and section 8 (lines 440-465).

A subsequent section(s) could then focus on consideration of managing risk and uncertainty. This would make it much clearer how the paper “extends” the work in [7] and the extent to which the paper contributes new knowledge.

Response: 

We did a word doc search and could not find that this sentence had been repeated.

 We have extensively restructured and rewritten a significant part of the paper to ensure that repetition is not present. We feel it now addresses the reviewer’s concerns.

R2: 

Sections 5-7 seem mostly to be just summarising descriptions of the 16 elements from [7], often with no explicit links to facilitating risk and uncertainty management. The two quotes (lines 205-213 and 287-294) don’t add anything. Better focus on consideration of elements and sub elements relevant to risk/uncertainty management was warranted. For example, provide critical discussion of the extent of overlap between elements 11-16 is appropriate with more explanation (eg lines 3901,

395, 405-406).

Response: 

OK. The quote relates to ‘motivation to collaborate’ as part of the first element. We have now expanded our explanations  and changed  the content of line 104  to clarify this quote’s relevance.

There are 7 sub-elements to element 1, not elaborated upon here, that explain a rated level of motivation to collaborate specifically relating to risk and uncertainty. For example, the presence of unknown risks is one sub-element and this may provide a dominant rationale for the project owner, design team and delivery team to closely collaborate.’ Other improvements address the rest of this suggestion from Reviewer 2.


R2: Line 409 spell out PO – presumably project owner ?

Response: Done

R2: Line 410 mentions two labels for alliance type projects with no explanation – this is not helpful.

Response: Done. Amended to: ‘A distinguishing feature of alliance type project arrangements, including level-3 IPD (there are three levels of collaboration intensity defined of which level 3 is the most like an alliance [6]) and the T5 type contract arrangements (British Airport Authority Terminal 5 agreement),”

R2: The middle part of Section 8 (page 11, Figure 2 and lines 467-499) is very weak and unconvincing. Figure 2 is not a “model”, it is a facile diagram and seems to have been plucked out of thin air. The sense of lines 468-479 is unclear. Lines 498-499 read like an unconvincing marketing brochure. This part of section 8 just detracts further from the quality of the paper – drop it!

Response: We can see that this has detracted from Reviewer 2’s appreciation of the paper. We have rewritten that part of the paper taking out the figure and strengthening the concept of hope. We have used Geraldi’s work to support this, which we feel strengthens this paper.

R2: I take issue with nearly all of section 9. In particular the paper does not deliver what is claimed in lines 552-556, 560, 578, 580. How has the paper “extended the range of ways the RBP taxonomy visualisation tool may be used …”? Lines 563-569 go off on another direction from the paper (and in any case have a rather narrow, glib characterisation of risk management ‘tools’).

Response: We have rewritten much of this section. It is now more focused on showing how the tool might be used to concentrate project team efforts on how the gap analysis may stimulate them to move ahead in a positive and focussed manner, improving the collaborative way in which the project is managed. The visualisation tool’s potential was (as mentioned earlier) not well developed in [7] and this paper draws attention to that additional and important potential contribution. The visualisation tool evolved from the taxonomy as [7] explained in their book. This paper involves an incremental advance, to make a further contribution. We make no claim to have invented the tool in this paper. It is, we feel, a small but valuable additional contribution. 





 







Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Congratulation to the authors, the article in current state is much better and clear. Some typos such as in line 48 missing "." may be needed. Please re-read and run through again the whole article to eliminate any typos mistakes. Nevertheless, I would still recommend this AS IS article to be published. 

Reviewer 2 Report

I note the significant changes made in this revised paper. The line of argument is now much clearer and is ready for publication.

Note the following small points which are easily dealt with at proof stage:

Line 49 - text needs editing -replace "that" by "as" ?

line 65 - "planned" not "planed"

line 174 - I suggest inserting  after "..was":  "undertaken by Walker and Lloyd Walker [8],"  otherwise it seems odd not to mention these names at all in the text leading to line 196 !

line 196 - for clarity replace "their" with "Walker and LLoyd-Walker"

line 212 - replace "illustrates" with "lists" or "shows". A mere list of elements doesn't really "illustrate" anything.

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