In essence, Partnering can be defined in terms of “6 shares”, each of which is relatively easy to describe, but a good deal more difficult to achieve in practice.
Partnering involves shared objectives which must be fully bought into by all parties. The real test of commitment should be that each party holds the other’s objectives as important as its own.
The parties will engage in shared governance, involving key stakeholders throughout the supply chain, with strong performance management of both outputs and behaviours.
Shared processes will remove waste and duplication and enable truly collaborative working at all levels. This inevitably means mutual dependencies, which in turn will remove the traditional boundaries between customer and supplier. In partnering, each party is a customer of and supplier to the other.
Within such an environment, shared information is essential. This will require the establishment of a shared data environment, including finance and joint performance measurement, which must be truly open book and honest.
Although each party will lead on different aspects of risk management, partnering is more about shared risk than about transferring it. This requires jointly owned and managed risk registers and a no blame culture, with the aim being to identify early and jointly work on the causes of risk, rather than the symptoms.
Finally, the parties must be prepared and contract for shared gain and pain. Proactive partnering requires concentration on positive incentivisation, with the parties working towards gain for each other. However, incentivisation is more than gain-share or pain-share at the programme level. It is also key that, at the working level, people are incentivised to innovate and to continuously improve delivery.
All of this should be centred on a culture of openness, honesty, respect and trust, and enveloped by an environment of collaborative working, within which strong and positive relationships between the parties, at all levels, is the key enabler.
The degree and nature of such sharing will be unique to each partnering programme and needs to be worked out jointly by the parties involved on the basis of what is best for them.
