6.6.1 Outstanding outcomes (game breaking)

The decision to use alliancing for delivering major infrastructure projects and programs often includes the expectation of project Owners achieving benefits described as 'outstanding' outcomes (also described synonymously as 'game breaking' or 'breakthrough'). Indeed, most alliance agreements (PAAs) provide an expressed obligation to reflect this expectation of outstanding outcomes by the alliance participants.

The Owner's objective in using an alliance to deliver outstanding outcomes is also often reflected in the initial request for proposals to proponents. These proposals sometimes provide examples of the level of outcomes that the alliance will need to achieve before NOPs receive a gainshare. More frequently however, proposals do not clearly articulate what is meant by outstanding outcomes or link it to the gainshare/painshare.

Outstanding outcomes are typically defined as performance or outcome objectives which are: 2, 51

•  a 'step change' or 'quantum leap' better than anything previously achieved

•  "discontinuous with previous performance or improvement trends"

•  "beyond predictability"

•  "not known to be achievable"

•  "paradigm shift"

•  "don't know how to do it".

Outstanding outcomes are differentiated from normal year-on-year business improvement or business as usual (BAU) incremental improvement.

Typical examples of outstanding performance objectives include:

•  "Beat the agreed TOC by 20%".

•  "Beat the agreed target completion date by six months".

•  "Deliver the works to agreed benchmarks of outstanding workmanship and design".

•  "Achieve widespread community advocacy for the project".

The achievement of such 'outstanding' outcomes is commonly held to require a 'high performance team' or 'organisational peak performance' within the alliance and this in turn requires the use of specialist coaching and facilitation. The cost of such support and associated facilities varies widely but 0.25-1 % of TOC is indicative of amounts often included in the TOC.

Despite the attraction of 'outstanding' outcomes ('game breaking') for Owners using alliancing, there was little evidence of outstanding outcomes being achieved. This finding contrasts with the view of the NOPs and Owners that their alliances often achieved outstanding outcomes.

This raises various questions:

•  Is there misalignment in industry as to the definition of outstanding outcomes?

•  Is the significant investment in the development of 'high performance teams' yielding net VfM given the Study finding of little evidence of outstanding outcomes?

•  Do other delivery methods (PPPs, D&C) invest as heavily in the development of 'high performance teams' as alliances? If not, why not?

•  Are the benchmarks against which outstanding outcomes are defined measured robustly and independently set?

•  Are outstanding outcomes necessary to achieve business case objectives?

The Study was unable to reach a conclusion on the first four questions above but notes that they are sufficiently significant to warrant further research.