For years, I worked in the general contractor world and saw how often construction contracts assumed conflict instead of collaboration. On the GC side, good ideas were frequently priced into contingency instead of shared openly, because the contract didn’t reward transparency or initiative.

Now, seeing both sides of the table while working with developers and architects, what’s become clear is that our industry’s biggest bottleneck isn’t technology. It’s the contracts and incentives that keep us from working together.

Owners, architects, engineers, and contractors are all at odds from day one, bound by transactional agreements designed to protect rather than empower. We get predictable outcomes: higher costs, slower schedules, risk-averse decision-making, and almost no real innovation.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

The Problem With Transactional Contracts

Most construction contracts are fundamentally reactive. They assume conflict, so they create structures to manage conflict. But in doing so, they also discourage contractors from sharing ideas that could reduce cost or schedule while pushing risk downstream instead of aligning stakeholders around shared outcomes. This leads to everyone in the deal team treating design, planning, and execution as separate silos rather than interconnected phases.

And in a world with labor shortages, supply-chain pressure, sustainability targets, and rapidly growing project complexity, transactional relationships don’t scale. They lock everyone into a defensive posture at the exact moment when we most need proactive solutions.

What a Better Model Looks Like

The real opportunity is to build contractual relationships that actually reflect how great projects are delivered.

In practice, that means:

1. Bringing contractors into the design conversation early

Contractors, subs, and suppliers see constraints and opportunities long before drawings are complete. When they’re invited upstream, projects get more constructible, more affordable, and more resilient.

2. Structuring contracts around shared outcomes, not outputs

If the goal is a safe, high-quality building delivered efficiently, then the incentives and risk profile should push everyone toward that same outcome. Contracts can enable alignment and collaboration.

3. Treating information as a shared asset, not a bargaining chip

When owners, designers, contractors, developers, and authorities all operate with different sets of information, miscommunication is inevitable. Keep one single source of truth early on to get everyone on the same page.

4. Creating a culture (and framework) that rewards innovation

All the new buzzwords in construction—prefab, modular, digital twins, AI feasibility tools—these only works when the entire team is empowered to suggest, test, and implement them.

Why It Matters Now

The building industry is under more pressure than ever to deliver faster, cheaper, and more sustainably without lowering quality or increasing risk. That’s not possible inside the constraints of yesterday’s contract models.

Collaboration isn’t a feel-good idea. It’s a competitive advantage.

Early alignment leads to:

• Fewer change orders
• Shorter schedules
• More predictable pro formas
• Better design-to-cost alignment
• Less rework and waste
• Higher trust across the project team

The firms that adopt collaborative contracts will outpace those who cling to adversarial ones. Developers will get better outcomes. Contractors will improve margins. Architects will spend more time solving problems and less time responding to RFIs that shouldn’t have existed in the first place.

Software as Catalyst for Change

Site planning AI tools like TestFit give teams the ability to explore real estate feasibility studies collaboratively from the beginning. But software alone can’t overcome misaligned incentives.

When owners and contractors are aligned early, TestFit becomes a catalyst for smarter decisions:

• Contractors validate constructability in real time
• Developers understand financial feasibility before committing
• Architects iterate options that reflect real-world constraints

This is how great projects start. But when the contract framework keeps those same stakeholders in silos, even the best tools can only do so much.

A Call for New Contracts for New Collaboration

If we want better buildings, better margins, and better outcomes for the communities we serve, we need to rethink how we work together.

Not just the tools.
Not just the workflows.
But the agreements that shape our behavior from the beginning.

The shift from transactional to transformational relationships isn't optional—it's inevitable. And the companies that embrace it now will define the next generation of the built environment.