We collected some key factors that we’ve come across in our development work done on construction sites to successfully complete the production phase of construction projects. Do these ring a bell in your work?

1. Plan in time

Well planned really is half done, especially when we’re talking about a construction site that employs hundreds or thousands of people. Planning means, in addition to drawings and structural designs, taking care of the scheduling, project management and resourcing in a timely and reasonable manner. For the schedule planning, it also pays off to start not from timing the jobs but instead from mapping what type of a building is in question, what types of area division it has for the project, and who’s responsible for what. This should be considered already when drafting contracts, a long long time before the site ever starts.

2. Involve the contractors

A lot of the problems during the site are caused by communication issues between different parties. This can be effectively prevented by involving at least the foremen from the sub-contractor companies in planning both before and during the site. After all, contractors from each trade has the best expertise from the needs and resourcing of their part, and making use of their know-how helps considering everything thoroughly well beforehand. In addition, we all know that involving creates commitment, so let’s cherish collaboration!

3. Make use of truly suitable digital tools

Pen and paper are great tools for fast sketching but for passing on information or keeping it up-to-date, not so much. Digitalization has become a huge buzz word in construction, and most construction sites already use a whole lot of digital solutions. One big problem, then, has become the vast variety of all the available applications, and the data fragmentation caused by it. At worst, you manually copy the text from a system or spreadsheet to another. That’s why you want to use overall consideration when selecting your digital tools. Which tool both supports the daily site operations and makes the data flow easily also to the headquarters?

4. Implement digital practices

Even a great digital application doesn’t help if it’s not used in a reasonable manner. That’s why your tool selection must also consider how each tool merges into the daily work and how do you make sure that everyone uses the selected tools the same way. You mustn’t separate the applications from how you normally work, but instead, these two must form a unified entity. Implementing this entity may, of course, often mean changing what has been the normal way of doing things, and learning new. How does your company ensure that the your investments in the digitalization also return true value, instead of getting forgotten as expensive and almost never used purchases that never had much to do with anything else you do?

5. Manage your site in collaboration

The above-mentioned practices, technology, and contractors, as well as the material suppliers, main contractor, developer, top management – all of these really need collaboration to keep everyone on the same page. But how could anyone have time to keep communicating with everyone at all times and ensure that everyone has exactly the information they need, when they need it? The answer is not in working harder. The answer is in working smarter. The incredible possibilities that technology offers us today make data flow possible without anyone having to use any time on separate reporting manually. It requires we change our daily work, break the hierarchical leadership models that are as old as time, and replace them with new open-minded, real-time and trust-based digital doing.

Don’t you, too, think it’s time?