The public client has in the early phase of a cultural construction project an important role of managing the strategic brief and delivering economic value and social benefits to the stakeholders and end-users. The purpose of this paper is to analyse how the public client's decisions have an impact on the community and its citizens by studying the requirements formulated in the strategic brief. A case study of building Houses of Culture has been accomplished where the public client's decisions in the briefing process and end-users estimations of the building performance have been analysed in terms of means and ends. The public client's decisions, including the clients' entrepreneurial role of combining different cultural activities in one building, together with the communication between construction professionals in the strategic brief, has been crucial to the development of end-user values.

Purpose – The paper seeks to suggest methods that will enable innovative and effective communication and collaboration between clients and construction project management professionals. Design/methodology/approach – The methodology involves workshops with construction clients documented in working documents circulated to participants. Findings – Workshops revealed trends that urge a re-evaluation of the briefing process. The need for better briefing with the focus on end-users is increasing. The findings also pointed to difficulties for construction projects to deliver what the user-clients need. There was considered to be a lack of systems and methods to keep track of user client demands sufficiently and in a satisfactory way. Goals need to be iterated and validated on a regular and coherent basis throughout projects. An increased interest for process-oriented and strategic briefing was indicated. Research limitations/implications – Further studies are required to develop a client/user driven construction process that is more than just new statements. Research needs to address not only issues in the business as such, but also what requirements should be put on the education and training of stakeholders who are active in the construction sector. Practical implications – The paper presents a challenge to the traditional role of several actors; there is a need to communicate core business needs to construction prerequisites in a reciprocal way. There is a need of choosing logic – however, this does not diminish the need for methodologies for capturing, processing and verifying requirements in the process of provision of facilities to a user. Originality/value – The paper proposes the idea that different logics govern actions by construction industry stakeholders, an issue the construction sector needs to address.

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to describe the process of the client's operationally determined requirements as they are translated into a strategic brief and how this is then transformed into a number of general briefs (outline briefs – four in total) adapted to various project categories so as to eventually be implemented in approximately 500 projects (through project briefs) distributed throughout Sweden. In addition, there is a description of the procurement procedure, which was directly based on briefs and the collaboration between the construction project's various players during the design phase, with the aim of clarifying how the development business's requirements were tested, developed and gradually implemented in the form of physical solutions.Design/methodology/approach – Two research methods have been applied: a broad (comprehensive) case study based on a workshop, interviews and studies of project documentation; and literature studies with the aim of generalising and analysing the client's brief work on the basis of the case studied. Findings – A number of factors (11 in total) of importance to implementation of the dynamic briefing are described and discussed in relation to the theoretical discussion in the field (theoretical framework). The case study supports the picture of briefing taking place as part of a dynamic process during which all players are responsible for adopting the development operation's overall goals, developing them and realising them in the best possible way in the individual project.Practical implications – The case study describes how business requirements are translated and developed during a collaborative process involving client and contractor – the brief's importance as procurement data. Experience from this case study may also be of benefit to other client organisations that are to implement national/international projects. Originality/value – The case study describes new knowledge of how national change processes are realised as well as collaboration between client and contractor. The paper offers insights for the academic community, professionals in the construction industry and clients involved in large-scale facilities and change processes.

This paper report from a study in an ongoing project aimed to develop and suggest methods that will enable innovative and effective collaboration between clients and construction project management regarding project objectives. Increased need for professional clients and the aim of construction project management professionals to engage in a wider range of tasks and activities during the briefing, design and production phase of construction projects is the main outset. The study presented addresses the relationship between the roles and goals of the client and the construction project management organisations/professionals. The overriding aim is to explore the managerial support, facilitation and implementation of client requirements, to study experience from collaboration between stakeholders and to create knowledge of the relationship between an effective achievement of clients' goals and the construction project management process. Existing project management and processes concerned with the planning of facilities are discussed based on theories in the field as well as on an interview survey among client organisations and project management organisations. Throughout, the focus is on project management and how it succeeds to convert the construction client's corporate strategy and business into property investment or corporate real estate decisions. Such knowledge should make it possible to create innovative methods for facilitating construction briefing and project management. It will also support the provision of facilities and provide a deeper understanding of the consequences of strategies or methods for the improvement of the performance of the client organisation's business objectives in construction projects. The development of such knowledge could be of particular interest for client representatives, project managers, development managers, facilities managers and design managers in the construction sector.

This paper report from an ongoing project aimed to develop and suggest methods supporting innovative and effective collaboration between clients and construction project management regarding project objectives. An approach to the establishment of client requirements by focusing the project management processes during the briefing, design and production phase of construction projects. Workshops with construction clients form the empirical base. The overriding aim is to explore the managerial support, facilitation and implementation of client requirements and to create knowledge of the relationship between an effective achievement of clients' goals and the construction project management process. Such knowledge should make it possible to create methods for facilitating construction briefing and project management. It will also support the provision of facilities. The development of such knowledge could be of particular interest for client representatives, project managers, development managers, facilities managers and design managers in the construction sector.