In delivery projects based on traditional Integrated Project Management (IPM), every role is staffed twice: once for the client and once for the contractor. That means ten people for five roles. The Values-Driven Floodplain Maintenance Contract (WOCU) opts for a single IPM team: Rijkswaterstaat and the IJsselwaarden consortium divide those five roles between them as equal partners. Each role exists only once.
Why is this in the library? Because it shows how a simple structural choice can build a different working culture and approach. Combine the roles, and the task — not anyone’s individual position — becomes the sole focus of discussion.
Core principle: when each role is filled only once, people have to look through the same lens. The purpose of the task thereby becomes the sole compass for joint decision-making.
The area between a river and its main flood defence, the floodplain, is the river’s safety valve. At high water, it provides extra space to carry peak flows quickly and safely towards the sea. It is also a habitat for plants and animals, with its own rules about which vegetation can grow where. Those rules are established in the Vegetation Register: a statutory instrument of Rijkswaterstaat, the Dutch national infrastructure and water management agency, whose maps and rules specify exactly how much and what type of vegetation — grass, shrubs or trees — may grow in Dutch river floodplains. Excessively tall vegetation can obstruct flow and raise water levels, and must then be limited or removed.
Maintenance of such an area is therefore never finished. Water levels, weather and ecology continually change, and the work responds to them rather than following a fixed schedule.
Along the IJssel and Zwarte Water, the area is substantial. Since 2022, Rijkswaterstaat and the IJsselwaarden consortium have jointly maintained the floodplains here. The contract was recently extended by three years, to at least 2029. The team manages 833 hectares of floodplain, including six priority nature areas with individual management strategies. It is responsible for 8,105 trees, and around 17,600 m³ was dredged last year to support flow and flood safety. Ten local farmers carry out an important part of the work, together mowing 81 hectares and grazing 113 hectares. How they became involved is explained below.
Traditionally, client and market teams worked alongside one another on such maintenance contracts, each within its own chain of responsibility. Every change on the ground meant another round of coordination, and often a discussion about what fell inside or outside the scope.
In this article, we explore WOCU IJsselwaarden, one of three area teams — alongside Maaskracht and Rijntakken — within the larger Values-Driven Floodplain Maintenance programme (WOUW). All three work as a single team. We speak with Cynthia Rol, project manager at Dura Vermeer Asset Management, and Koen Grob, stakeholder and environment manager representing Rijkswaterstaat.
WOCU chose a different route: not two teams coordinating with one another, but one team in which each role exists only once, distributed between the two organisations.
The structure
At WOCU IJssel, the distribution is as follows. The project manager, technical manager and project controls manager come from the market: the IJsselwaarden consortium, a partnership between Dura Vermeer and Brunel. The contract manager comes from Rijkswaterstaat, while both sides contribute to stakeholder and environment management. The asset manager from the organisation responsible for managing the area is also part of, and closely involved in, the team.
This lean structure has a downside: if someone is absent or leaves, there is no duplicate staffing to fall back on. In practice, that has proved manageable. Team members have learnt to look beyond their own roles, but it remains a point of attention. Members of the programme team are also always available to step in if needed.
Starting from a blank A4 sheet
The contract’s content makes the difference from a traditional contract tangible. “A standard contract always begins with an enormous number of pages of requirements,” says Cynthia. “Our contract began with a blank A4 sheet.” It was filled not with a checklist, but from one overarching purpose: safe and natural floodplains.