Choosing and developing high-functioning teams for infrastructure projects with non-traditional contract models

As a $2.5 trillion global industry, infrastructure projects are a cornerstone of government planning worldwide. As projects continue to grow in size and complexity, successful project outcomes are paramount. Performance improvement has been a construction and project management research priority for decades without substantial improvement. The project team and relationships amongst stakeholders has been largely overlooked in this quest for better performance. This thesis seeks to explore attributes of the project team and its leadership as well as the relationships developed between the governmental authority and the consortium/special purpose vehicle/contractor as a means to forecast project success or failure. The primary objective of this study is to investigate the link between the project team and project outcomes in order to inform decisions related to procurement of megaprojects. Three Canadian public private partnership projects (PPP) in the transportation sector are studied during the course of this research (1) Sea to Sky Highway DBFOM, (2) Golden Ears Bridge DBFOM, and (3) Evergreen LRT DBF. The findings are informed initially by a detailed review of procurement documents, media reports, and government audits related to each project. These sources serve to corroborate the primary data collected through direct engagement with industry professionals responsible for decision making and leadership on the three projects (N=12). This study is exploratory in nature, utilizing qualitative methods in accordance with a constructivist grounded theory approach. It employs semi-structured interviews which allowed participants to provide depth and richness in their direct recollections. Findings suggest non-technical leadership attributes, integration, and collaborative project culture serve a critical role in relation to project performance. Through prioritizing relationship-development and evaluating non-technical leadership attributes within the procurement process, project owners can drive project resiliency and performance. This in turn can serve to re-define and re-prioritize the construction industry’s approach to the composition of project teams and partnership by rewarding relationship-oriented groups who engage collaboratively with project stakeholders.Applied Science, Faculty ofCivil Engineering, Department ofGraduat