The construction industry became so adversarial that the U.S. competitiveness was threatened. Time and money were being lost in adversarial client, contractor, and subcontractor dealings on large engineering projects – wasted in defensive posturing, case building, developing claims and litigating. In 1987, an industry association, the Construction Industry Institute (CII), took the lead by establishing a task force to search out and structure a culture based on mutual trust, shared goals, open communications, and building on one another to open the door to opportunities – Partnering. The Task Force’s findings set down the basic precepts and methods of partnering. 

Partnering has improved the very culture of the construction industry. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Naval Facilities Engineering Command tried partnering for their military construction projects. The successes of those projects were so dramatic that they established partnering as their preferred way of conducting business with one result being that the Society of American Military Engineers became a leading partnering proponent. Contractors benefited and their industry associations, e.g., the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC), became advocates. Likewise, the designers of heavy engineering projects benefited and their industry associations, the American Institute of Architects, American Consulting Engineers Council, and National Society of Professional Engineers, have “bought in,” become advocates, and provided training materials for their members.

Partnering benefits are not limited to the construction segment. It is a viable management technique that brings divergent organizations together into a motivated team – committed to pull together for the success of the project and the success of the organizations. Partnering provides the project managers, for the first time, with effective tools for project team building – structured methods to establish mutual goals and measures of success, to create open communications, and to rapidly resolve issues. The adaptability of partnering to other industries is typified by the Department of Defense’s success at applying it to the management of contracts for a variety of services, systems, and equipment manufacturing – contracts that have benefited because their managers recognized the value of building a team committed to the cooperative precepts and methods of partnering.