A Critical Appraisal of Briefing Client in Construction Process

Vietnam is a one of emerging markets following the UK Trade and Investment (2010) report. Accordingly, Vietnam is a country which is a market-leading selection by international investors especially the construction industry which attracting impressively by the possibility of its profitability. Therefore, the development of strategies for international construction demands in Vietnam is very essential to meet the client’s objectives in terms of function, quality, value, time, and cost and certainly.

The lacking of skilled person to meet the requirement of construction project in Vietnam is a big problem and lead to late delivery and over budget. Whilst briefing always has been a key element of any project. Often, requirements and demands from client are not collected adequately to provide solutions and result is inappropriate. Briefing is a communication process combined with record system to publish a set of documents to the design team; it is a process of developing a deep understanding about the client needs. It is a continuous interaction and involvement of the client and professional teams are important in this process. Through good briefing and grasping what the real needs are, client and professional consultants can work more effective and productive on project and make decisions confidently.

NGUYEN CHAU DIEU AN made a case study which objectives were to:

1. review the concepts, definitions of client and client briefing in construction in order to understand the client’s expectation through the client’s briefing process.

2. review the methods for strategic client briefing and other relevant literature on client briefing.

3. present the problems of briefing in a specific project in Vietnam and its solutions.

4. propose a framework of briefing for next project.

Conclusions

Briefing has long been recognized as an important and essential part in the international construction process. It has a substantial contribution to the success of a project. However, briefing has not been acknowledged in the formal way by client and consultant in Vietnam construction industry. Client and consultants are not aware of the importance of the briefing process and most of them have not been trained in factors related to the client’s brief.

The literature study shows the essential activities and interactive relationships involving the client organization and the design team as they progress through each phase of the project. It provides the value information to achieve assessments and objectives of the project.

The aim of this study was to explore a construction client’s process for project briefing and to improve understanding of strategic briefing and briefing methods for both client and consultant in meeting the client’s expectation. The study showed the problems that architect is stuck by not admitting what a paramount briefing and clarifies elements which play important roles in a success of project.

1. To know the client’s objective through the briefing process

In order to achieve this objective, the literature has been reviewed on the concepts of the briefing process, the definitions of a client, client’s expectations and the client briefing process within the construction. The investigation tried to understand the expectation of clients through the client’s briefing process.

2. To apply techniques of briefing process for architect

To explore different methodologies and tools that can be used to establish client’s demand and expectation on construction project such as questionnaire development, need analysis, briefing content, communication.

3. To understand the administrative and official process impacting on the briefing process

In order to achieve this objective, involvement of client, stockholders, end user, and consultant during the process is very essential. Managing changes of requirement, recording verbal communication, and making decision are factors in briefing administration which impacts success or failure of the project.

Besides the objectives above, this research also provided the methods to the briefing process to get requirements from client such as empowering client, managing project, parties’ involvement, team building and using computer system, communication skill, and record system.

Although there are still problems in Vietnam construction industry, this study has been achieved by the conclusion that the construction industry in Vietnam will be focused on a briefing process especially in application methods of briefing, training and acknowledgement a brief properly to get efficiency, profitability of a project.  

Recommendation to improve briefing process in Vietnam construction industry

1. Perceive role of briefing

Need to train all parties involved in a project aware of how important the briefing is, the role of briefing in a project and contribution of briefing to the success of a project. Through a better briefing, an architect can get what the real client wants and client’s expectation. Even client, they will be able to make decisions related to investment with great confidence.

2. Understand briefing process

Briefing process is an interactive process between the client and professional teams and briefing happens continuously during the construction process. Briefing process needs many techniques, tools to get requirements and demands from client such as team building, getting information, analyzing, managing changes of requirement, recording, and communicating.

3. Apply different techniques in construction

Find out various techniques to apply in a briefing process such as using computer system to improve communication between client and professional team (Science & Engineering Research Council) includes general approach, questionnaire development, data analysis, system contents.

Abstract

Client briefing plays a crucial role in success of a construction project. A successful briefing can achieve the target time, cost and quality for a project and make decision on project confidently. Although there are many attempts to approach client’s requirement and needs for a project, it is still not collected adequately to make appropriate solutions in design. In Vietnam, client briefing is not considered an important process and architects usually focus on design without paying any attention what their client really wants.  

The objective of this research are to provide a basic knowledge of briefing process which is not consider as a integral process in construction process in Vietnam, present research, analysis of problems of briefing in a project and recommend a briefing framework in order to avoid client’s frequent changes and control information collected systematically.

This Project Report has taken a general view of Briefing Process in theory and analyzing a case study that applied in Vienam to find out reasons of failure, lack of briefing techniques. The report points out that a framework of briefing need to be established for identification what a client really wand and clarification of client’s demands.