New research methods in CII

For many years, the accepted research method in the Construction Industry Institute (CII) was based on industry-wide surveys and their analysis. While this approach is valid when applied to measurable company-wide results such as cost overruns, safety indicators, etc. surveys may give a distorted view of reality when applied to human behavior. This difference occurs due to the fact that when surveyed, people tend to state the generally expected answers rather than providing the real facts. Often time, the interviewees themselves are unaware of the distortion in the responses they provide. This paper provides a new approach towards revealing the real behavior and decision-making process of the subjects rather than the generally expected response. Revealing the behavior and decision-making is done through games and thought-provoking exercises that have been specifically designed for this purpose. These games and exercise contain construction knowledge that is by itself useful to the interviewees. The games and exercises were then embedded in a one-day seminar that serves three purposes: 1) workforce development, 2) feedback about hidden issues in the company, 3) data collection for the research team. These seminars are organized by the participating companies and the data collected is sent to the academic partners for analysis. The paper presents the general framework of the seminars, the games and exercises that were developed, the concepts behind them, as well as the type of data that is collected. Examples of results are also presented.