The process through which a construction project is materialized is very arduous and complex. Professional architects and engineers are commended with the design of structures that will satisfy the needs of stakeholders through a construction project. During the early stages of pre-design, architects and engineers need to identify and gather all the requirements of the project as established by the different stakeholders. In general, requirements are either presented in written form or in graphical form. The design process is in nature a translation of multiple media in the form of drawings, sketches, matrices, charts or text. Drawings represent a visual solution to a problem, but do not communicate what the initial requirements were, and if they were met. Frequently, changes that occur during the construction lifecycle are verified against the solution offered by the design team rather than by the initial requirements, causing error in design and other problems related to requirements compliance.

During the design phase, the myriad of information that needs to be integrated in order to meet all the project requirements is constantly fluctuating and have to be constantly reviewed for conformity and consistency. Even the most detailed requirements and designs can fail to meet project objectives, or cause budget or schedule overruns, if the design does not accurately translate project requirements or if the changes that are made throughout the project lifecycle are not analyzed under this criterion. The system implemented to carry out this assignment must include capabilities of traceability of these changes and their history. This problem can be addressed by applying methodologies implemented in other branches of engineering, like the waterfall or spiral models used in software engineering.

The State of Ohio has a comprehensive set of requirements called “State of Ohio Standard Requirements for Public Facility Construction (General Contracting Project)”, which are linked to the “Ohio Facilities Construction Manual”. In these documents the construction process is detailed meticulously; establishing proper protocols and procedures to be followed from the conceptual conception of the project, project definition, planning and design stages, to the project closeout, occupancy and correction period. From my perspective, these documents are in unison with the principles recognized as the best construction management practices by national and international construction associations.

However, there is a lack of explanation of how will the changes that affect the initial design (e.g. field-related conflicts solutions, owners change requests and potential environment-related changes) will be analyzed and crosschecked for integrity with the project requirements. The program of requirements (POR) seems to be a document composed during the pre-design and design stages, and then put aside for reference instead of being continuously managed. The magnitude that this absence of requirements management or inability to maintain coherence between the construction process and project requirements throughout the lifecycle of the project will have in meeting the project’s goals is an unknown that will fail to deliver predictability of outcomes for a construction project, hence forsaking the mission and purpose of construction management.