Integrated Project Delivery: A Practical Guide for Joint Ventures

Integrated project delivery (IPD) promises all the things that multi-GC construction projects need.

Better alignment, fewer surprises, and shared accountability.

But, in practice, many IPD projects fall short of that promise. Not because the method itself is broken; it’s because few have the technical systems to support IPD.

This guide will break down the integrated project delivery methodology: what it is, who it’s best suited for, how it’s commonly implemented, and how joint ventures can set up an IPD project that’s successful and sustainable.

What is Integrated Project Delivery (IPD)?

Integrated Project Delivery, a methodology spearheaded by Lean Construction, is a project delivery approach where the owner, architect, contractor, and trade partner enter into a single, multi-party agreement.

Instead of optimizing single contracts, it’s a shared system of:

• Risk and reward
• Project goals
• Financial transparency
• Decision-making authority

The whole idea is to replace clunky handoffs with early collaboration, especially during preconstruction when design decisions have the greatest cost impact.

Traditional delivery vs. IPD

In traditional delivery models (design-bid-build, CM at risk, and even many design-build arrangements), misalignment is structurally embedded. 

Designs progress before cost is fully understood, contractors price risk late, and owners absorb the consequences. Each party may be acting logically on their own, but it’s a team effort, and without shared visibility and accountability, the system fails.

‍James Pease, the VP of UCSF Health Capital Projects, say this very issue resulted in over $50M dollars in inconsistencies, double-ups, and unnecessary items for his capital projects.

“On large projects, where we’re compiling estimates from over 100 different companies, consolidating everything into one system is a nightmare," James says. 

IPD removes the isolation because design, estimating, and constructability advance together. 

For joint ventures specifically, this shift is significant. Key trade work is looped in early, project data is shared, and cost validation happens as the design develops.

Who is IPD best suited for?

Integrated project delivery is a methodology built for projects where misalignment would be especially costly, such as:

• Joint ventures with multiple contractors or development partners
• Large-scale or technically complex capital projects
• Projects with regulatory uncertainty
• Owners who want to actively guide preconstruction decisions (rather than be reactive later)

The joint venture piece is especially significant.

The average cost overruns of megaprojects involving multiple GCs is around 80%, with schedule slippages of 20 months.

These ghastly numbers aren’t by a single bad decision or even a lack of effort on the part of folks involved. They’re caused by all the fragments that come with outdated methods.

IPD gives JV teams a new way out…

How IPD works in a joint venture project

It’s another Monday, but for an IPD partner it doesn’t start with reconciling spreadsheets. They revisit their shared cost model, agreed upon assumptions, and project targets with confidence that it’s aligned with all the folks at different firms. (How refreshing!)

In practice, here’s how it works.

One cost model, not parallel estimates

Under IPD, JV partners agree to develop and maintain a single, shared cost model during preconstruction; rather than each firm carrying its own estimate and reconciling differences later. 

What this looks like in practice:

• The team reviews one live estimate in working sessions. The quantities, scope, and allowances are agreed to in the room (or in a cloud-based software, preferably)
• When design changes, the cost impact is updated, discussed immediately, and accepted or rejected together
• Teams build and review different variance reports on their estimate. For example, they might look at saving on scheduling time but increasing a trade cost. Instead of one partner absorbing the hit, the group adjusts scope elsewhere to stay on target

This alone eliminates a major source of friction in JV projects: late discovery that partners were pricing the same scope differently.

Risk is identified early and managed collectively

Jennie Dorcy, a preconstruction solutions engineer with years of experience filing lien claims, says it best: “Payment crises don’t start with a bad check. They start with ambiguous scopes and speculative contingencies.”

IPD is designed to prevent exactly that: assessing risk early.

What it looks like:

• JV partners build and maintain a shared risk register with ownership and mitigation clearly assigned (Products like Ediphi’s GC&GR’s makes this do-able at scale)
• The JV flags a real risk early, like material price volatility, and agrees on a plan — buy ahead, allow for escalation, or adjust scope — rather than each partner guessing on their own

Clear governance for shared decisions

IPDs create clear guard rails: who decides what, when, and with whose input during preconstruction. This helps you from defaulting to the loudest or most risk-averse partner in the room.

Effective IPD JVs establish:

• A joint leadership group with defined decision rights
• Clear escalation paths when partners disagree
• Regular, structured cost and design alignment checkpoints

Pro tip: Using a cloud-based preconstruction platform over a desktop tool is the ultimate collaboration hack. 

Specialized trades get a seat at the table

In many projects, key trades don’t meaningfully weigh in until pricing is already underway. 

In an IPD model, trade partners are brought in while the design is still taking shape. They review layouts and are given the opportunity to flag constructability issues before drawings are finalized.

Instead of estimating based on assumptions, trades price work based on how they would actually build it. 

• A mechanical or electrical partner reviews the design while it’s still flexible and flags coordination or access issues before drawings are finalized
• Trades weigh in on scheduling and installation methods, helping the team avoid details that look good on paper but are difficult or costly to build

Step-by-step: How to set up your first integrated project

So, now you want to integrate IPD on your next project.

It can start to be implemented in part or in whole (any effort towards more collaboration early is a good start!) but, at Ediphi, we’ve built a platform that can get you all the way there on your next project.

Here are the key features you can use.

1. Start with a shared, cloud-based preconstruction platform

The entire point of integrated project delivery is early and easy collaboration. This is what the cloud does for you.

• Multiple JV partners can work together on the same project from anywhere in the world
• Multi-user collaboration gives everyone real-time visibility into changes in the plan 
• Version control issues are drastically reduced

A real life example: Hensel Phelp’s precon runs through the cloud and a senior estimator on their team tells us that he finds himself opening his estimate multiple times a day to add bits of detail as they come up; something he was never able to do when it took 5-10 minutes to get into his estimate via VPN…

This now makes everyone’s lives easier. Partners estimate side-by-side in one system from a shared database with version control and audit logs that keeps costs aligned through the whole planning process.

This is what turns IPD from theory to practice.

2. Consolidate project data in a cloud database

Cloud databases make everything visible and in Ediphi your data is stored in something we call the Unit Price Catalog.

Every line item is tied to a standardized name, unit of measure, and historical pricing so all JV partners reference the same data instead of reconciling conflicting numbers later. Costs and line items can be bundled together in any way that makes the most sense to different partners and clients.

• Units define square footage, occupancy, finish levels, etc. parametrically
• Use Groups standardize all of the asset classes
• Systems fortify multiple scopes, trades, and line items into one system 
• And all of it flows into shared estimates, so when assumptions change, the impact is immediately felt by the entire JV, not just one firm.

‍Colby Ajoku, Director of Integrations at Ediphi, has led the charge in building what he considers to be the ultimate “open platform cloud solution for JVs”.

“At Ediphi, we can steer the ship in any way you need to go,” he says, “If client A comes and wants a particular use case, something proprietary and specific, and client B wants to hand select something else, we have enough tools in our tool belt to get it done.”

If you have specific data needs for your next project, talk to us — we can build it.

3. Store and track every estimate in Milestones

Big projects often involve dozens of evolving estimates in each design stage, from concept to final GMP.

Milestones is your filing cabinet; a central estimate dashboard where every partner can see 1) the current estimate and 2) all of its prior context for the full picture story of an IPD project.

👉 Learn how to build your first Milestone here.

4. Push directly into Excel with a live integration

Excel won’t (and shouldn’t) be replaced — forcing teams to abandon it entirely creates unnecessary resistance — but we do need to improve our relationship with it.

With your collaborative environment set up, you can push final bids into Excel-based reports that auto-update. 

Ediphi’s Last Mile Excel integration gives JVs flexibility to:

• Continue using specialized spreadsheets where needed
• Sync outputs and reports into a system that’s easy to share with clients and partners
• Maintain flexibility without manually updating cells when a single number changes

“Preconstruction is [often] left with figuring out [a lot] of information in the last mile, putting together our bids from trade partners and our numbers. Ediphi is the next generation of estimating platforms and the Excel Add-in is a snappy workflow.” — Kyle Bonde, Senior Estimator at Hensel Phelps

It’s proven to be a huge time-saver on enterprise-level projects, not to mention a more accurate way to compile reports at the last mile of a JV project. 

👉 See how it works with this demo video from one of our customers.

Turning IPD from theory to practice

Integrated project delivery works, but, as an industry, we need to move away from managing in silos, building designs we can’t afford, and reacting too late.

If you’re ready to make IPD practical on your next joint venture project, we’d love to show you how teams are using Ediphi to bring shared visibility, real collaboration, and early cost control into preconstruction.

Talk with our team or book a demo to see what IPD looks like when the systems finally match the intent.