A novel lean briefing process for effective design management

Construction projects experience design changes and much time and effort is put into trying to address fluctuations in client and project requirements. However, in many cases, insufficient value is delivered to the client. The successful use of lean management in the construction stage has opened up the possibility of using it in the design stage – thus helping to establish a systematic approach to managing construction projects and business. Attention is turning towards lean design management to address deficiencies in the design phases that many would argue should have been dealt with in the early project delivery stages. Aspects of ineffective briefing process practice have been shown to have negative consequences and implications for the efficient performance of design management. The client is asked to provide requirements without ensuring that they have established sufficient knowledge of the project to do so. These requirements, most likely, will change then over time, because in most cases the initial decision was not made based on sufficient project knowledge or a well-established vision. The client needs to be made smarter and to learn about the building early on in the project, long before the architect sketches the concept design. A grounded theory research method was adopted in order to achieve the research aim. The interpretive research perspective suggests a more inductive approach to theory building. Thus, more emphasis was placed on using a qualitative paradigm. In the early phase, unstructured interviews were used to collect primary data from construction industry practitioners working in design companies and construction organisations. These targeted practitioners were mainly based in the UK, but additional data was also collected from Libya in order to select some lessons from good practices in the briefing process. Similarly, in the later phase of this research, semi-structured interviews and focus group were conducted with Lean experts from the construction industry and practitioners from the UK construction industry, and these supported and validated the practicality, clarity and appropriateness of the newly developed lean briefing perspective in principle. This research provides unique insights into the briefing process and contributes new aspects to the theoretical understanding and practical implementation of lean design management in AEC. It is believed that the learning perspective will bring a radical change to the perception of the briefing process, and that the lean approach has the appropriate theoretical basis to improve the briefing process practice. The author argues that this new lean briefing perspective will enhance project brief delivery and therefore support delivering design for assembling and production as a means of lean design management. The outcomes of the lean briefing research reveal that it could be utilised as an effective initiative to respond to Egan and Latham’s recommendations for creating a better industry.