The Lean Construction Institute (LCI) sponsored a symposium on relational contracting for Lean Construction in November 2004. The participants agreed that relational contracts were best suited to Lean Construction, based on the discussion of certain multi-party relational contract forms presented at the symposium (Ballard & Howell 2005). LCI officially supports ConsensusDocs, and the ConsensusDoc form that provides a relational contract for Lean Construction is the ConsensusDoc 300, a three-party contract that LCI helped develop. It is clear that the collective preference in the Lean community is for a Lean project to use a multi-party relational contract. To be frank, I share that preference.

However, not all owners are legally allowed or institutionally suited to enter a three-or-more party relational contract. This essay focuses on one contracting alternative that may open the door for more projects to implement Lean Integrated Project Delivery: design-build.

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