Issue

Taylor Woodrow Construction wanted to ensure that the close working business-to-business relationships that had developed between it and its Strategic Alliance Partners (core members of its supply chain on construction projects) was implemented within its project teams to achieve the expected business benefits for all partners.

Action

I interviewed senior managers and did repertory grid and critical-incident analysis to identify what they regarded as desired behaviours by members of their project teams.  Interviews were then carried out on three projects that were agreed as being ‘good’ - in that teams were working collaboratively and delivering good project performance.  From these two sources I developed descriptions of collaborative behaviours on projects, and role-specific descriptions and examples of ‘good’ behaviours.

Outcome

The work was presented at a company supply chain conference to TWC managers and the SAP partners, and was used to define, make explicit and measure and the behaviours expected between TWC and SAP staff at business and project levels.