Step 5: Follow Through

Once the project team has agreed on values and goals through early alignment workshops (in steps 1 and 2), chosen an appropriate business model and a contract structure (in step 3), and agreed on a roadmap for implementation (in step 4), it is ready to implement methodically the project process and follow through to project completion.

Methodical Discovery and Implementation

Before engaging in schematic design, teams need to complete an early analysis of the interrelationships among project systems and how each individual’s role relates to the other team members’ roles.

• Analyze interrelationships among project systems before schematic design.
• Analyze anticipated water and energy demands.
• Perform early-design-phase simulations to predict actual loads.
• Identify opportunities for design choices to reduce high-impact loads and/or meet them with on-site, renewable resources.

This step is outlined by the Integrative Process LEED credit (US Green Building Council 2015).

Sustaining the Collaboration

A concerted effort is required to maintain the necessary high level of collaboration in an integrated team. A facilitator may be needed for the length of the project, to sustain the collaboration and ensure that the team reaps the benefits of its earlier cost and time investments.

• Designers and builders come with various levels of skill and experience in collaborative work: ongoing coaching, facilitation, and support are essential to maintaining a high-functioning team.
• The bigger and less experienced the team, the more intensive and hands-on the facilitation has to be.

Construction and Operation

Ensuring that the values of the project are passed down into construction and operation is one of the biggest challenges—and often where poorly integrated teams mistakenly take short cuts and inadvertently compromise green performance. Including the building operator in the design team and reviewing roles and responsibilities with the builder’s teams helps ensure continuity, and coordinating the commissioning schedule with the construction schedule helps to efficiently verify performance targets.

There is no final step in an integrated design and delivery project. The operations team must be trained at the end of construction, but tracking performance and monitoring key performance indicators continues for the life of the building.

• Review with the builder’s team their roles and responsibilities before construction.
• Coordinate commissioning: the installation of all systems by the builder is subject to performance goals, and commissioning is incorporated into the construction schedule.
• Verify the training of the building operations team.
• Roll a percentage of performance savings into operations optimization.
• Establish standard operating procedures that provide continuous feedback.
• Communicate the building’s green features and performance goals to occupants to gain their support and buy-in.

Case Study: Lion’s Gate Wastewater Treatment Plant