{"id":3770,"date":"2018-12-05T14:25:16","date_gmt":"2018-12-05T19:25:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.construction.com\/resources_pages\/cheat-sheet-construction-project-delivery-methods\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T07:56:21","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T11:56:21","slug":"cheat-sheet-construction-project-delivery-methods","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.construction.com\/blog\/cheat-sheet-construction-project-delivery-methods\/","title":{"rendered":"Construction Project Management: Project Delivery Systems Cheat Sheet"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Written by Ben Johnson on December 6, 2018<\/p>\n<p>The number of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.construction.com\/blog\/cheat-sheet-construction-project-delivery-methods\/\">project delivery methods<\/a> in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.construction.com\/reports\/new-project-planning-guide-helps-project-teams-engage-owners-to-mitigate-uncertainty\/\">construction project management<\/a> is expanding, leaving some confusion over their definitions. Here\u2019s a quick &#8220;cheat sheet&#8221; explaining the top four methods commonly employed today:<\/p>\n<p>1. Design-bid-build<br \/>\nThis has been the traditional U.S. construction project management delivery system for many years. After several phases of planning, the owner&#8217;s design team completes construction plans and specifications to solicit competing bids from general contractors and their trade subcontractors. The construction contract is usually awarded to the lowest \u201cresponsive\u201d bidder for execution of the project. The design-bid-build method leverages market competition, but it can create adversarial team relationships\u2014and the builder isn&#8217;t involved until after design is complete.<\/p>\n<p>2. Construction management at risk<br \/>\nTo bring construction expertise into the design phase, a construction manager (CM) is engaged to take the general contractor&#8217;s role. They may work on an \u201cagency\u201d basis\u2014providing assistance during the design phase and then bidding and managing separate trade contracts held by the owner \u2014or \u201cat risk\u201d with cost liability based on a price negotiated as the design is completed. Either approach provides more collaboration between designers and builders. The agency option can leave the owner with more financial risk; the construction management at risk option can yield some of the conflicts found in the design-bid-build approach.<\/p>\n<p>3. Design-build<br \/>\nThis approach has a single party contractually responsible to the owner for both design and construction of a project. The design-build entity can take various forms, including an integrated firm, a contractor- or design-led team, a developer or a joint venture. The design-builder encourages early participation by key trade contractors and awards other trade contracts as a general contractor would. The overall project cost structure may not be as transparent unless done on an \u201copen book\u201d basis. Competitive selection of a design-build team should focus first on qualifications and past performance.<\/p>\n<p>4. Integrated project delivery<br \/>\nSome owners have adopted this innovative delivery approach to encourage alignment, collaboration and more efficient processes among all members of the design and construction team throughout the construction project management process. In general, IPD team members share mutual business incentives, risks and rewards for the entire team&#8217;s performance relative to explicit goals and objectives. Some IPD projects use multiparty contracts signed by all team members. In many ways, the IPD approach creates a business venture among the owner, designers and builders. There is no single IPD model.<\/p>\n<p>Learn more about construction project risk mitigation best practices in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.construction.com\/reports\/new-project-planning-guide-helps-project-teams-engage-owners-to-mitigate-uncertainty\/\">this free report<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":3771,"template":"","class_list":["post-3770","blog","type-blog","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Construction Project Management: Project Delivery Systems Cheat Sheet | Dodge Construction Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Learn the different construction project delivery methods and how to choose the best one for your projects.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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Roepke","author_link":"https:\/\/www.construction.com\/author\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Written by Ben Johnson on December 6, 2018 The number of project delivery methods in construction project management is expanding, leaving some confusion over their definitions. Here\u2019s a quick &#8220;cheat sheet&#8221; explaining the top four methods commonly employed today: 1. Design-bid-build This has been the traditional U.S. construction project management delivery system for many years....","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.construction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog\/3770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.construction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.construction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/blog"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.construction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.construction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}