Multi-actor arrangements and project management - Rebuilding After Disasters: From Emergency to Sustainability - page 94

Second question: how to organize?

If the answer to the first question calls for building, it becomes necessary to
address a further set of questions, which are better considered at both techni-
cal and organizational levels. At the technical level, choices relate to what
the output of the project should consist of (e.g. of what materials and what
components it should be built). In terms of organization (properly considered
in parallel), decisions relate to what processes to set in motion, how tasks
are to be performed, to whom they will be entrusted and when, i.e. in what
sequence they are to be carried out.
As is well known, any construction project has many participants, rang-
ing from professional offices to enterprises and craftsmen, selected from
the building industry, that is to say, from a relatively restricted community
in any country or region. 3 The building industry is, in management jargon,
a “multi-industry,” reflecting the fact that it is composed of a number of
different categories of participants, each with its technical competencies and
each with its own set of behavioral rules and customs. It exists within a given
national context (all buildings exist in a national/regional-specific location,
even if some participants may be multinational). This national context is, in
turn, inscribed in the contemporary global environment (political, economic
and cultural-media) (Figure 5.3).
The selected project participants constitute what is loosely called “the
project team.” 3 A relatively limited number of professional and business
firms are chosen from the range of available professions and trade specialties,
shown in black in Figure 5.3 (white circles designate other professionals and
businesses probably involved in other projects). They are chosen, but the
question immediately arises: by whom and acting on what authority?
The members of the team come together through selection procedures (ex-
plained in detail later in this chapter) to design and build the required project.
In management jargon, this group of team members is called a “temporary
multi-organization.” It is temporary because it only lasts for the duration of
any one project, separating at the end; indeed, its members probably do not
all work together on any later project. It is a multi-organization because of its
necessarily multidisciplinary composition, with each participant bringing his
or her specific skills to fit in with the requirements of the briefing, designing
and constructing process.
The traditional organization of the building project team operates within
certain management patterns; Masterman describes three major types of
arrangements:

￿ separated and cooperative - in which project initiation (by the building's

owner) and design are separated from production and construction,
requiring nonetheless a high level of cooperation between the two blocks
of participants;