They say it takes a village. They weren’t talking about completing construction projects, but the truth is, that wisdom applies just as much to getting a construction project from concept to completion as it does to anything else.
What most people don’t think of when they think about construction project management is just how many people are involved in the process; however, after many years of developing construction project management collaboration software, we have insight to share. Here’s why construction project management collaboration matters and how software can help you get there.
The first and most important fact about construction project management is that it’s not just something that happens in the project manager's office.
Nearly every team member at every level of your business will be involved in getting your projects over the finish line.
From construction superintendents and project engineers who report on progress and manage problems, to estimators and finance teams who calculate and process billing and payments, to safety and quality specialists who assess and mitigate risks--they’re all involved in the process. That’s one of the biggest reasons that construction project management collaboration software is an essential investment.
One reason that traditional paper-based, email, and phone call-heavy methods of managing projects are so much less effective than good construction project management collaboration software, is that most construction projects don’t take place nearby to your project management office.
Some might be in rural areas, but others might be in different cities, regions, states, or even countries.
Whether it’s time zones, the time required to complete project management paperwork, or figuring out how to get that paperwork to your project managers in a timely manner, when you’re working on jobs that are geographically distant, there are many barriers to effective collaboration.
This often means that information and project data take longer to get from the field to the project management office, and at least some important pieces will get lost along the way. It’s harder to make good project decisions, and it takes a lot longer to make those decisions. Since we all know that time is money in the construction world, those kinds of delays could hurt profitability on every job.
A big part of the information flow of any construction project is communication between field crews and the project management team. But it’s no big secret that field crews aren’t usually fans of paperwork--and with good reason.
Whether it’s the time it takes to complete paperwork or the logistics of completing it, filing it, and transmitting the information back to the office, doing the paperwork required to keep your job moving is a big job, and a bigger hassle.
Construction project management collaboration software that is cloud-based allows your field crews to skip the paperwork and complete their reports quickly and easily without any of the real-world, practical paperwork trouble.
Most of the best construction project management collaboration software includes flexible security options that allow you to include all major role players without compromising confidentiality and security.
Often, there are some things like legal or contractual information or financial data that you don’t want to share with field crews. But at the same time, you need to be able to share the latest specifications, contract instructions, change orders, and drawing sets with them.
Good, modern project management software tools include granular security and access options that allow you to configure user groups for every level of your organization. That means that you can still share the information you need with the people who need it, without compromising on security in other areas.
The last big advantage of implementing good construction project management collaboration software is that it will guarantee a faster turnaround of information between different groups.
Very often, project management tasks and decisions are time-sensitive. Usually time constraints are built right into your contracts, and you might only have a week or two to report certain issues to your client or make a change order request. Any delays in getting related information from the field to the project management office could mean that you miss that window completely, and that can have a big impact on your bottom line.
The same rule even applies after your project is complete. Whether it’s latent defects or late injuries related to your job site, or team members needing operations manuals and as-built drawings, being able to access archived information faster is vital to every construction project.
Not having to search through binders, filing cabinets, or storage boxes to find critical information after the fact is one of the biggest long-term benefits of using quality project management software.
The construction industry has always been one of the slower adopters of technology. Not only are we often stuck in a “we’ve always done it that way” mindset, but we’re all so busy getting stuff done that we often don’t have time to implement new strategies that will allow us to do stuff better.
However, things are changing, and they are changing fast.
It’s not just architects and engineers embracing technology these days. Construction companies of all sizes, across all industry sectors, are discovering that going digital offers a fantastic ROI. They're also realizing that most good construction software will pay for itself within one or two projects.
So, if you’re still on the fence about digitizing your construction projects, rest assured that you’ll be in good company once you make that move--and with the right software, you’ll be amazed at the results you get.