If you're a project manager or foreman, you already know the headaches that tools like WhatsApp, Excel and MS Project are causing when you try to manage high-repetition projects like hospitals, apartment buildings and road works.
In one of our recent webinars, Olivier Luxen, Senior Project Manager on a residential project, compared the way we do planning in construction today with the way we did it on a road trip 40 years ago.
You plan your project in MS Project and distribute it, but as soon as an obstacle arises, your planning becomes obsolete causing stress and confusion because the information arrives late.
So you may quickly find yourself buried in:
- countless text messages and emails
- unnecessary phone calls
- isolated MS Project timelines
- WhatsApp notifications and Excel spreadsheets
Many project and site managers tell us they need to spend up to 50% of their time each week on planning. This could be collecting information from multiple sources and platforms, attending endless meetings, and making phone calls that could have been avoided in the first place.
In a series of interviews we conducted with project managers like you who work on many repetitive projects, we identified some of their biggest challenges, as follows:
- keeping the agenda up to date (47%).
- have insights and KPIs from real data (30%).
- constantly asking yourself “What’s missing?” (50+%).
But it really isn't your fault. You have been asked to fight this battle using weapons that are not adapted to your needs. As good as they are, WhatsApp, Excel and MS Project are not suitable for construction teams and project communication.
You have your full program on a big paper chart, document approvals in different email threads, detailed plans in MS Project, and random notifications popping up on WhatsApp. Let alone all the information shared over the phone that can be easily forgotten and never delivered.
Working across these diverse applications is what makes it impossible for you to track your project and communicate with your team in an effective and timely manner. In other words, this is what prevents you from delivering faster and, therefore, cheaper.
How to Successfully Connect Your Construction Teams Around the Live Show
By now, it's clear that construction is a fast-moving, constantly changing project that needs to be reported on a daily basis. Like a freight train that takes a detour. You may think you are going one way, but you are actually going the other way.
So it all comes down to this idea: if you know what's happening on site, you build better and faster. And the faster you build, the better your chances of finishing within budget. That's why you should get the live program into the hands of your construction teams.
To achieve this, you need to do the following:
1. Move your programming to the cloud and say goodbye to silos.
All the things mentioned above that your teams also suffer from can be avoided if you move your program to the cloud, as you may have already done with your drawings. This way, you can give field teams access to the same live schedule and avoid having to send tedious emails and WhatsApp messages to validate the latest changes.
Everyone will work on the same information and react to requests in a centralized location. However, for this to happen, it is no longer possible to rely on tools that are not made for construction.
2. Replace MS Project and Excel with a construction-specific tool.
What if each team could easily share their own schedule in real time to avoid the confusion of sending out-of-date, disconnected updates via email?
What if you could now connect these timelines to the cloud to benefit from a centralized view of progress on waterfall tasks, on-site blockers, or material delivery issues – and immediately see their impact on your master program and completion?
Find out more: 5 tips that every construction supervisor should know
Well, it's actually possible. But you need to leave WhatsApp and Excel and extend your MS Project to the cloud.
Exactly as Matt Ghinn, Project Director at VolkerFitzpatrick, did. Matt was finding it difficult to keep an overview of the project. There was pressure on him to deliver and he needed to execute a project plan hour by hour without having a full picture of what was happening on site. Formal reports were only made every 4-12 hours and this meant that impacted schedule issues were not always known until the end of the 12 hour shift, resulting in project delays. These delays would inevitably disrupt local activities and, in most cases, cause project delays.
“We are not calling, we are not using WhatsApp groups, we are not sending emails. The program is live, it’s there, and all the data from the site is captured,” says Matt Ghinn.
3. Prioritize local adoption.
Once you've found the right digital tool, it's time to start focusing on website adoption. Many project managers and construction foremen are reluctant to implement a new tool because they fear that their teams do not have enough technical knowledge to adopt it.
But that really shouldn't be a problem. Most people on the field already use their smartphones to catch up on the latest news on their favorite sports team, check their bank account or simply access Facebook. That being said, there is absolutely no reason why they can't figure out how to use a construction-related app that will ultimately make their daily life a lot easier and certainly less stressful.
At this point, however, it is also essential to mention that training is fundamental. In collaboration with your software vendor, you should organize detailed onboarding and training sessions and offer all team members the opportunity to ask questions and familiarize themselves with the new application.
Start reaping the same benefits as Matt!
If you too want to connect your teams on a live schedule into a single source of truth, it's time to say goodbye to the tools that are leaving you behind like WhatsApp, MS Project and Excel. Download our free e-book and start witnessing the same benefits as Matt from VolkerFitzpatrick!
