It's an article of faith that the successful construction of large transit projects has become a specialty unto itself for owners, engineers and contractors. What is it about large, complex transit projects that make them uniquely challenging, and how can a transit-specific partnering process enable project teams to successfully address these challenges?

Let's look at the top six challenges and how a proactive partnering process can help construction teams manage them. “Avoiding claims” has been left out intentionally as a rub point, because while this is always a valid goal for a partnering process, it is often a consequence not having an effective conflict resolution process — something not unique to transit projects.

1) Any new rail projects today involve exponentially more and increasingly more active third parties than in the past.

These can include cities and counties (and the varied administrative functions within them), utilities, police and fire departments, community groups and oversight agencies. Reacting to them produces predictable consequences — they complain and the project team is in a mode of just meeting their often unclear expectations and, at best, the contract requirements.

The solution? Involve them in the partnering process from the get go to include the definition of project "partnership goals" that acknowledge but are not limited by your contractual obligations. Then get their personal involvement in the key processes to achieve those goals and move beyond their institutional stereotypes of one another. Get Frank from city streets working with Susan from the design-build team and Ed from the transit agency and Jack from the power company to solve the ROW issues at Main Street. Large transit partnering workshops have dozens of participants and the great majority — including long-term public employees — want to be part of an extraordinarily successful project that is not limited by legal and contractual obligations. Also, consider “derivative partnering workshops” for special and critical situational needs that may arise over the project.

2) Transit projects are of exceedingly long duration.

With this come not only changes in the phase of design/construction, but also personnel changes. It’s common now for major transit projects to take five years or more. How do you ensure that the team is focused on what they should be focused on at any one point in time in terms of upcoming challenges? How do you ensure continuity in terms of overall project goals and the personal commitment to them? It is easy to get caught up in the short-term circumstances and lose sight of the big picture. How do you integrate new players into the team? Attendees at one workshop at the conclusion of one five-year project were asked how many of them had been at the initial workshop five years ago. About 30 percent raised their hands.

To keep everyone current, consider conducting quarterly review workshops that revisit and revalidate (and often change) partnership goals. At these workshops, “custom target” participants who can contribute to the upcoming two to four months of project activity. Supplement these workshops with monthly e-mail surveys that remind all partners of the goals and let them know how they are doing as a team.