Improving international construction processes by using critical incident analysis

Due to a lot of developments on a worldwide but also local scale, construction industry is still an active area of business, e.g.: Lifecycle thinking in use and reuse of buildings, increasing need for better infrastructure, restoring demolished projects in post-disaster areas, etc. In several parts of the world one or more of these items are actual in the (local) economies. However, construction often plays quite a passive role in it, not being used as a driver but more as a tool for change or improvement. This paper focusses on the role of construction industry in an international scope as an environment with existing critical incidents during the process, often leading to real conflicts. These critical incidents are exposed by the background, behaviour and expectations (e.g. culture) of the parties involved. This analysis shows there are a lot of specific individual situations and circumstances, being a threat as well as an opportunity for the 'running' and improvement of the process. As part of the paper, the way how to learn from critical incidents in construction processes is described and discussed, especially in the way how they could be of use on a global (multicultural) scale, probably leading towards a useful 'set of tools' in the near future for improving construction processes locally. In fact the paper focusses on the issue of how to learn from experiences in construction, and how to generalize these experiences in such an (international) way, that one can take the advantage of it during the improvement (reengineering) phase of construction processes. This, within the background of CIB-Taskgroup TG23, 'Culture in Construction', being established to be a 'platform' and 'driver' for exchanging experiences and knowledge worldwide, leading to a serious 'rethinking' of construction industry in the near future.