Improving megaproject briefing through enhanced collaboration with ICT

a r t i c l e i n f o Aims: The paper reviews the development of information and communication technology in briefing and proposes a collaborative briefing framework to extend key stakeholder engagement, aiming to improve the efficiency and reliability of project briefing for megaprojects. Scope: Authors introduce an innovative collaborative approach to promote stakeholder involvement by enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of managing a large group of stakeholders, harnessing collaboration technology. Drawing parallels with biological neural networks in humans, a conceptual collaborative briefing framework is proposed to demonstrate how briefing team members can work collaboratively as a virtual organisation through a shared digital workspace. This framework has five core elements: integrated briefing team, collaborative briefing job plan, computer supported cooperative work platform, requirements processing models and facilitation models. Conclusion: The proposed framework supplements face-to-face discussion with computer mediated discussion, depending on the type, flexibility and interaction needed for different aspects in briefing. This " hybrid briefing method " would maximise the benefits to costs ratio of expanded stakeholder engagement in project briefing. The framework is expected to promote the accuracy and transparency of 'requirements identification' processing, the effective engagement and appropriate integration of more stakeholder inputs and finally, to improve the efficiency and reliability of briefing outputs. Lastly, some framework limitations are discussed, aimed at further development and a computer prototype. 1.1. Importance of briefing " Briefing " can be considered almost synonymous with concepts of " Architectural Programming " as used in North America [1] and " Scope Management " as used in Australia [2]. Briefing is the first and most important process in project management, which a client either formally or informally informs others of his or her needs, aspirations and desires [3,4]. It identifies and analyses the needs, aims and constraints of the client and the relevant parties to formulate the design problem in a construction project [5,6]. In a broad sense, briefing develops an interface between the design process and the socio-political environment in construction. It is an iterative process involving regular feedback between stakeholders including clients, designers, project team members and end-users in a project [4,7]. At the pre-design stage, briefing helps clients to define their design problems by translating their needs into written project requirements such as functional performance criteria and quality standards etc. [8,9]. These requirements act as a basis for approaching designers [3]. At the design stage, these requirements …