Knowledge, skills, and attributes of project alliances managers in Australasia

Project Alliances (PAs) demand particular knowledge skills, attributes and experiences of alliance managers (AMs) and key team members of non owner participants (NOPs) in PAs. The ambience of a PA is quite different to that of other relationship-based procurement types such as partnering or public private partnerships (PPPs). Therefore, AMs and their senior team members need to be not only technically competent and have sound project management (PM) skills but they also need high-level advanced PM skills to create, nurture and develop a culture of collegiality, shared responsibility and commitment to a best-for-project outcome. This paper draws upon extensive PA literature, several recent Australasian studies on PAs (predominately undertaken in Australia), and others elsewhere as well as results from a recent research project undertaken with the Australasian Alliancing Association in which 10 Alliance managers and 3 of unit managers they report to were interviewed. The study generated 13+ hours of taped interviews and over 200 pages of transcription that were analysed using NVivo within a grounded theory approach to make sense of the results. Results were used to develop a profile of the skills, attributes and experience needed of AMs and were able to develop a framework to differentiate between new and inexperienced AMs, emerging proficient and expert levels of preparedness for the AM role. A capability maturity model was developed to not only profile AM stages of development but to also be used as a developmental tool by those pursuing careers in alliancing. While results may be specific to Australasia and for AMs, the profile and results presented may form the basis for wider application. ----Conference held: University of Reading, Reading, England, 5-7 September, 2011

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