Abstracts Communications and the Arts

The Influence of End User Requirements to Inform Built Asset Design

by Roy Whitaker

Construction developments may be defined as temporary project coalitions in which participants form a network of communication and collaboration for the exchange of information and knowledge. Aligned to this, there is increasing recognition of the value of broadening consultation in the briefing and design stages of projects to obtain input from a more expansive and inclusive population of those that will operate and use facilities, which has hitherto been an all too frequent omission. The Health and Social Care sector in England has placed emphasis on developing its estates strategies with stakeholders in attempts to inject innovation to how services are delivered. In unison with these aspirations, the Construction Industry Council has worked with NHS England in the development a construction quality control mechanism, the Desiqn Quality Indicator for Health (DQIfH). The research gap identified for this study is in how communication and collaboration processes with stakeholders can be given precedence to ensure that end user requirements are identified in the consultation stages of projects. This research provides analysis of how effective the DQIfH processes have been in capturing user requirements in a healthcare construction project. Social Network Analysis (SNA) was used as a method of quantifying and conceptualising levels of communication and collaboration between stakeholders. This was enabled through semi structured interviews with key stakeholders to provide qualitative participant interaction information as well as quantitative data for analysis. The research findings present novel insights into how quality control mechanisms can provide structure for communication mechanisms to flourish. Stages of maturity are identified where advanced levels of knowledge are made possible through the pooling of resources of formal and informal stakeholders working together to foster collective social capital, both structural and relational. The implications of such collaborative practices are identified for the attributes that the formation of close and trusting relationships between participants can provide, such as shared values, trust, and the development of group knowledge to better understanding the needs of the community. The research provides new knowledge on how social network analysis can overlay design quality mechanisms to gain understanding of contemporary working practices through the conceptualisation of communication and collaboration between stakeholders. It is recommended that this research is extended to allow researchers the opportunity to observe interactions directly in an expanded range of present-day projects.