For more than a decade, the infrastructure industry has invested significant energy debating collaborative delivery models.
Alliance contracts. Incentivised target cost contracts. ECI. Collaborative contracting frameworks. Relationship charters. Shared objectives.
Yet despite this investment, many projects continue to struggle with the same challenges:
- Transactional behaviours
- Slow decision-making
- Misaligned expectations
- Escalating disputes
- Declining trust over time
Perhaps the problem isn't the contract.
Perhaps the problem is that we have spent too little time developing the capability of the client team required to operate within it.
Collaboration Is Not Binary
One of the assumptions that continues to hold the industry back is the idea that projects are either collaborative or they are not.
In reality, collaboration exists on a spectrum.
As we explored in our recent article on the Collaboration Continuum, every project sits somewhere between highly transactional and highly integrated ways of working.
The contract influences where a project might sit. It does not determine where it will sit.
We've seen highly collaborative teams operating within traditional contracts.
We've also seen highly transactional behaviours emerge within supposedly collaborative models.
The differentiator is rarely the contract itself.
The differentiator is the capability of the people operating within it.
And nowhere is that capability more important than on the client side.
What Is An Active Client?
An Active Client is a client team that recognises it retains responsibility for creating the conditions for project success.
Rather than stepping back and relying on contractors, advisors and administrators to solve problems on its behalf, an Active Client intentionally participates in shaping outcomes.
Active clients:
- Share context rather than withholding it
- Participate in solving problems rather than simply reviewing solutions
- Make timely decisions
- Surface and address issues early
- Invest in relationships, not just transactions
- Focus on project success, not organisational positioning
They don't outsource leadership.
They exercise it.
The Gap Most Clients Don't See
Most client organisations can describe the commercial model they intend to use.
Far fewer can describe the behavioural model required to make that commercial model successful.
This creates a capability gap.
A project may be designed to operate collaboratively, while the client team continues to operate transactionally.
The result is predictable:
- Governance becomes compliance focused
- Decisions slow down
- Trust erodes
- Contractors disengage
- Innovation declines
- Public value is lost
The challenge is not simply understanding where the project is designed to operate.
The challenge is understanding:
- Where the client team is operating today
- Where it needs to operate
- What capability development is required to bridge the gap
From Concept To Capability
This is the challenge our Active Client framework was designed to address.
The framework helps client teams understand what collaborative leadership actually looks like in practice.
Not as a philosophy.
Not as a charter.
As observable behaviours.
It provides practical guidance about how client representatives contribute to:
- Decision making
- Risk management
- Issue resolution
- Stakeholder engagement
- Performance conversations
- Partnership leadership
- Relationship stewardship
Most importantly, it provides a common language for discussing client-side capability across the life of a project.
Because collaboration is not simply something contractors do.
It is something clients must actively create.
Why This Work Must Start Before Procurement
A common mistake is treating collaboration as a mobilisation activity.
By the time contracts are signed, many of the behaviours that will shape project culture are already being established.
We believe the conversation should begin much earlier.
The most effective organisations start asking questions before procurement:
- What type of collaboration will this project require?
- What behaviours will enable success?
- What capabilities will our client team need?
- Where are our current strengths and gaps?
- How will we develop those capabilities over time?
This is where procurement, project leadership and People & Culture teams must work together.
Collaboration should not be treated solely as a commercial design question.
It is also an organisational development challenge.
Building The Client Team Development Plan
Contractors routinely invest in team development programs, leadership development, onboarding, relationship workshops and cultural interventions.
Client teams rarely do.
Yet many major projects will experience significant turnover over multi-year delivery periods.
Sponsors change.
Project directors move on.
Governance representatives rotate.
New stakeholders emerge.
Without a deliberate approach to maintaining culture and capability, valuable knowledge and behaviours leave with them.
This is why we believe major projects should have a formal Client Team Development Plan.
A living plan that defines:
- Required client leadership capabilities
- Development priorities
- Team effectiveness objectives
- Cultural expectations
- Onboarding requirements for incoming personnel
- Ongoing reinforcement and coaching activities
Just as delivery teams require planned capability development, so too do client teams.
Without it, collaborative intent gradually gives way to transactional behaviour.
And with that shift, public value is diminished.
Collaborative delivery is not something you procure; it is something you continuously develop.
The future of collaborative delivery will not be determined by contracts alone.
It will be determined by whether organisations develop the capability to operate effectively within them.
The most successful client organisations are not simply selecting collaborative contracts.
They are building collaborative clients.
Because project outcomes ultimately depend less on the commercial framework and more on the capability, leadership and behaviours of the people working within it.
Call to Action
If your organisation is preparing for a major procurement, mobilising a new project team, or seeking to strengthen collaborative delivery capability, the ODAPTIC Active Client Framework© provides a practical starting point for understanding what effective client-side collaboration looks like and how to build it over time.