Towards the use of knotworking for increasing innovation in construction projects

Knotworking is an emerging collaboration form in the built environment, which promises to encourage innovation at Construction project level. This study of knotworking processes is part of a larger research program about collaboration in the built environment. In this study of Knotworking, the focus has been on how the participating organizations and professionals can learn how to participate in knotworking. A facilitator was introduced to establish how facilitators can assist the participating organizations in a construction project to learn to produce knowledge and innovation through knotworking. The theoretical foundation is Activity Theory, the data collection method derives from applied ethnomethodology using a blend of video recording and participant observation. The data has been collected in a series of planning meetings and one workshop about building a new kindergarten. The analysis of data shows that the open-endedness of the process was difficult to handle for the participants, as they wanted to return to old norms and routine that overrule the knotworking process. The major result is that the use of a facilitator can functions as a catalyst helping the participant exploiting the openings for knotworking by encouraging people to bring in their resources and tools in new ways and in this way increase innovation.