Development of a Partnering Maturity Assessment Tool for Transportation Agencies

Abstract

Partnering has been used since the mid-199s as a means to enhance collaboration between transportation agencies and contractors, with the ultimate aim of reducing claims and postconstruction litigation. The literature reports that it has been largely successful at the project level; however, no formal study has measured the change in organizational behavior that results from adopting the fundamental principles of partnering as a daily business practice to deliver projects using alternative contracting methods. The purpose of this paper is to fill this gap in the body of knowledge and propose an approach to measuring partnering program performance using maturity modeling. The study identified current partnering strategies found in the literature and conducted a content analysis of 5 solicitation documents from 31 state transportation agencies in the United States. The partnering maturity model follows organizational capability maturity principles, defines five maturity levels, and guides agencies in self-assessing the current maturity of their programs. This paper presents the maturity model and the results of the model’s assessment by a transportation agency with longstanding experience delivering projects using design–build, construction manager-at-risk, and public–private partnerships. This paper contributes to the existing body of partnering knowledge by furnishing an objective methodology to identify potential areas of improvement for partnering projects delivered using alternative methods.