Delivered as part of its client strategy, the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) collaborated with the Institute of Asset Management (IAM) recently to convene a roundtable meeting to investigate the experience and needs of senior representatives of client-side built asset managers.

The meeting explored how clients and their delivery partners can work more effectively together to achieve value over the whole life of an asset. 

With a welcome from IAM’s CEO Ursula Bryan, and chaired by Will Mann, editor of Construction Management magazine, the event in November 2025 was conducted online. What follows is a synthesis of the themes that emerged.

A built estate’s operational priorities – buildings that are long-lasting, resilient, safe to use, sustainable, easy to maintain, cost effective, and meet the needs of their users – are poorly aligned with those of capital delivery teams. This was the over-riding experience of the roundtable panellists who, despite operating in diverse sectors, share a common set of challenges in working with their consultants, contractors and wider supply chain partners.

The trouble is that when a planned project hits the hurly-burly of budgetary constraints, regulatory hurdles, commercial interests, distanced subcontracts, programme pressures, and all kinds of external curveballs, high-level objectives founder. The long-term ideal falls prey to short-term reality.

The industry has faced this challenge for years and made repeated efforts to overcome it. Early contractor involvement (ECI), soft landings, integrated project insurance and pain-share/gain-share partnering agreements – they all have the same ultimate goal: best value outcomes. 

While helpful, these initiatives have yet to resolve the problem, made harder, no doubt, by clients’ aspirations growing beyond mere operational efficiency to embrace sustainability, social value, community benefit and all the other dimensions of ESG. 

Although there was a palpable sense of frustration at the ongoing inability to square the capex–opex circle, panellists had plenty of lively ideas for tools to tackle the issue and, in the end, were optimistic that beneficial change was possible. 

Defining success

Programme and cost certainty are fundamental factors influencing success, and of course featured prominently panellists’ list of project priorities. However, these weren’t sitting at the top. The panellists’ most important benchmarks covered the spectrum of other hot management topics. 

For example, John Green (Anglian Water) and Leigh Renshaw (AstraZeneca) want their teams to be aligned to their corporate values and goals. 

Simon Edwards (Wessex Water) and Derek Cuthbertson (Royal Mail) both prioritise applying lessons learnt from successful projects to future work, with Cuthbertson’s interest being part of wider focus on quality assurance, broadly defined. 

Because she commissions work in a live hospital setting, Julie Blight’s (Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust) chief requirement is for contractors to show collaborative behaviours. This helps her to manage risks to members of the public whose health is likely to be compromised in some way.

With his civil engineering focus, Jason Glasson’s (National Highways) absolute top priority is health and safety, aiming for ever-decreasing rates of RIDDOR-reported accidents. 

Dan Hollas’s (Clarion Housing Group) top concern is for tier-one contractors and the whole of the supply chain to be properly competent – unsurprising in the context of the intense regulatory scrutiny that higher-risk buildings are under. 

The impression was that clients are increasingly looking for extra value-adds in the form of innovation, sustainability, social value and local community.

Innovation: need, constraints and enablers 

Most of the organisations represented said they actively look for innovation that supports their long-term strategic goals – particularly in sustainability, carbon reduction, data, and operational efficiency.

Inevitably, there are blockers that make innovation harder to deploy even when the will is there. The usual suspects – time and money – are ever-present, but again, they are by no means the sole barriers. Specifications, existing standards, and regulatory compliance often make it harder to accommodate innovative solutions. Matched by clients’ risk aversion and the project team’s unfamiliarity with new working practices, it’s easy to see how innovation can be blocked. 

Even so, the panellists highlighted a menu of tools and tactics for overcoming these blockers. These ranged from the straightforward – asking for it upfront in RFPs and contracts – to, in the case of National Highways, investing in R&D. As a large client body with a challenging pipeline of projects, they have the means to have an internal R&D programme and an ‘engagement council’ that runs innovation competitions, puts innovations on display for their supply chain and even has seed funding to help to bring innovations to market. 

Shared frustrations and pressures in project delivery

To understand another person’s point of view, you have to walk a mile in their shoes. It was in this spirit that panellists were invited to express the day-to-day frustrations they encounter during projects. Several themes stood out.

Maintaining the strategic vision

Representatives from the larger organisations serving the public highlighted the erosion of a project’s vision that happens when asset management objectives clash with project management realities. Although Green recognised the need for constructive tension – for example, to engineer value – he regretted delivery teams’ focus on capex at expense of the other five capitals in the Six Capitals model. Glasson felt that the problem lay in mistakenly treating the physical asset as the final goal, whereas in fact it is just a tool to the real goal, which is to provide a service to their customers.

Communication and information flow

Poor communication and information flow was another significant theme – interesting in the light of the ‘golden thread’ concept and the overarching principles enshrined in ISO 19650 for BIM.

Frustrations were apparent at all stages. Cuthbertson highlighted the lack of pricing transparency. As he said, “Clients need clarity on costs – not just on what things cost but why they cost what they do – to ensure best value.” He also pointed to vague and infrequent project updates, which make it harder to manage expectations, treat risks, and make informed decisions – a point echoed by Blight.

Both Blight and Glasson expressed the problems caused by failures to hand over information on completion – even when it’s a contractual obligation. Conceding that it takes discipline to carry out this duty when people are moving on to the next project, Glasson urged people to do it anyway. As he put it, “We need good data to nurture the asset over its whole life so that we’re efficient and effective.”

Planning and change control

Closely related to communication is the question of planning and change control. This has several different dimensions. 

Cuthbertson’s bugbear is with late change requests that result in additional costs that could have been avoided. Also, he has noticed a weakening of leadership skills among contractors, which are needed to maintain programme, manage the supply chain and uphold quality standards.

Blight highlights the gradual reduction in the overall level of competence in delivery teams after the ‘A’ team has won the project and moved on. Apart from anything else, personnel changes mean less project knowledge, more work getting them up to speed … and an erosion of trust.

Competence and consistency

All these frustrations reflect gaps in competence, something that Hollas thinks is at the root of the difficulties teams have with collaborating. It also is an underlying cause of the lack of consistency in performance that Renshaw sees in the same teams from project to project.

Improving collaboration and delivery

Panellists were asked to name one thing that they would change to improve project delivery. Once again, their responses were diverse but converged on several shared ideas.

Commercial alignment 

Edwards talked about the need to have a ‘line of sight’ to the ultimate goal at every project stage. Green wondered whether this could be enabled by better off-the-shelf commercial models so that teams ‘row in the same direction’. He clarified that that meant addressing the contractual environment, financing, and the culture and behaviours of the people involved.

Glasson felt that getting supply chain partners to collaborate better together was, ultimately, within the head client’s power to facilitate through better upfront, evidence-based information about their values and what they know works from experience.

Renshaw wondered whether more use of ECI, two-stage tendering and gainshare/painshare contractual incentives might help to align project teams to the client’s values and goals. 

Stronger focus on competence

By no means exonerating clients, Hollas recommended that project teams should pay greater attention upfront to matching their competence to the specific needs of the project. This involves understanding your limitations and choosing others whose skills, knowledge, experience and behaviours complement yours.

Better continuity of teams and relationships

It was suggested that to keep teams together, projects needed to have a certain momentum. Stops for planning consents, for example, disrupt how resources are deployed, with the inevitable consequence that the composition of teams shifts. 

More face-to-face interaction 

Finally, in recognition of the softer skills needed to manage and motivate people, Cuthbertson felt that there was no substitute for face-to-face engagement. As he put it, “Digital platforms like Teams, project management systems, CAFM (computer-aided facilities management) systems play their part in collaboration, but nothing beats boots on the ground when it comes to checking progress and quality, and building relationships of trust with stakeholders, consultants, contractors.”

Closing reflections: bridging two worlds

In their final comments, participants expressed optimism that closer collaboration between asset management and project delivery is both necessary and achievable.

Several highlighted the value of continuing to share insights across organisational boundaries, recognising that clients, contractors and consultants all operate under evolving pressures and shifting priorities. Others emphasised the opportunity for professional networks to strengthen cradle-to-grave thinking and improve collective understanding of what constitutes best value.

A shared view emerged that improving the interface between asset management and project management – culturally, commercially and technically – is central to delivering long-term value for organisations, users and communities.

With thanks to CIOB/IAM panellists:

• Julie Blight, Property and Contracts Manager, Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
• Derek Cuthbertson, Programme Manager (construction), Royal Mail Property & Facilities Solutions
• Simon Edwards, Asset Management Director and Bio-resources Capital Programme Lead, Wessex Water
• Jason Glasson, Head of Asset Management Development, National Highways
• Terry Gray, Project Commercial Director, Ferrovial Construction
• John Green, Senior Asset Strategy Manager, Anglian Water
• Dan Hollas, Building Safety Director, Clarion Housing Group
• Leigh Renshaw, Responsible Engineer and Associate Director for Construction, AstraZeneca Operations