Contractual guidelines for promoting integrated project delivery

Integrated project delivery (IPD) was originally developed to overcome the challenges associated with increased project complexity, high fragmentation levels of the construction industry, and inadequate interoperability among the different stakeholders. Despite its documented benefits on project performance, IPD adoption is still witnessing a slow uptake in the US. Recent research studies have tied such slow adoption - in part - to the lack of contractual understanding and implementation of IPD. This paper addresses this critical research need. To this end, the authors used an interdependent research methodology consisting of (1) selection of IPD agreements; (2) identification of the main contractual IPD issues of concern that may lead to conflicts, claims, and/or disputes between the contracting parties through analysis of seven various IPD case study projects; and (3) reviewing and analyzing the contractual provisions, relevant to the identified IPD issues of concern, under the most pertinent national IPD standard forms of contracts. It is worth noting that in order to assure the scientific rigor of this research, the authors consulted throughout all methodological steps and verified research outcomes with the construction group of a leading legal firm. Results show that the major areas of concern in relation to contractual management of IPD processes include risks and incentives; liabilities and indemnification; suspension and termination; insurance; data sharing; and, dispute resolution. This study contributes to the body of knowledge by providing (1) a comparative analysis showing how these issues have been tackled under leading IPD standard forms of contracts; and (2) contractual guidelines to promote better understanding of effective and efficient IPD practices. As such, this research offers substantial practical implications through furnishing insightful information about causes of disputes in IPD agreements as well as how the most popular IPD contracts in the US handle them, and finally, checklist questions to serve as a reference for the contracting parties in negotiating the terms governing their IPD projects. Ultimately, this research should better support changing the contracting culture to better enable and facilitate broader and wider adoption of IPD practices in the US.