The effects of poor communication on a construction project can snowball. According to the Project Management Institute (PMI), in projects with ineffective communication, only 37% met deadlines, 48% were completed within budget, and just 52% met their original goals.
A basic misunderstanding can lead to many more issues as a project develops, ultimately resulting in errors, rework, and a waste of valuable resources. To avoid this situation, communication channels and workflows must be well-defined. Adopting clear and effective communication in a large enterprise is key to ensuring that construction progress management goes smoothly.
The good news? Technologies such as 360° photo documentation and construction progress management platforms are emerging to aid construction firms in creating more effective communication systems within teams.
Getting your whole team onboard and adopting these tools across the enterprise will provide a significant leg up over competitors who fail to leverage this opportunity. As technology is most effective when adopted enterprise-wide, it is essential to get your entire team’s buy-in for it to be successfully implemented – avoiding siloes as the organization expands and scales.
Without this buy-in, teams are left without complete visibility, lacking access to necessary information to make informed decisions on-site and off-site.
Let’s look at the benefits your team can reap when 360° reality capture technology is implemented effectively across all teams.
Elimination of guesswork
Accessing documentation within a single location for off-site monitoring may be a challenge your team is facing. Gaps in documentation or a lack of synchronization mean the construction team often has to travel back to the site.
The guesswork and uncertainty that all on-site photo documentation has been secured causes a lot of time to be spent ineffectively. According to an FMI report, poor information costs the U.S. construction industry over $31.3 billion in 2018.
Instead, with a 360° reality capture tool, walk-throughs can be planned ahead of time to ensure that all photo documentation needed is captured by the field team, avoiding rework.
By using a cloud-based construction management platform to house all captured 360° photos, communication within both the on-site and off-site teams is seamless, locations can be flagged on the floor plan directly, and 360° virtual tours can be used as a single source of truth to ensure everyone stays on the same page.
Promote collaboration between teams
Poor communication systems often create an unproductive environment where teams are not motivated to collaborate – ultimately impacting how your team works together and solves problems.
Using a 360° reality capture tool, photos are stored within a single source of truth platform that is accessible remotely at any time, so on-site and off-site teams can collaborate seamlessly and understand what is going on much faster.
VDC managers, project managers, and stakeholders can access walkthroughs and then leave comments or recommendations within the same workspace using the 360 Markups feature on HoloBuilder’s Web Editor. This allows for smoother communication between teams, ensuring everyone stays on the same page regarding on-site conditions.
Manage multiple projects seamlessly
In a large enterprise, you have multiple teams handling multiple projects, which could lead to miscommunication if you are unaware of their progress.
Using a platform that allows you to view all your projects at a glance is helpful as you eliminate the hassle of manually locating and viewing progress data for each project in your organization.
HoloBuilder’s Enterprise Dashboard gives you access to all your organization’s projects in a central location. It also provides several different roles for different users, each of which has its permissions and abilities.
This function is necessary as a user can have only one user role within the company-level but have multiple job permissions on the project level depending on how they are positioned within your organization. All of this gives you more leverage to manage your team effectively and get insights into your projects’ performance.
Improve communication with clients
Client communication is essential as it establishes and maintains their trust. Visualizing the entire site with 360° photos within a cloud-based tool like HoloBuilder facilitates transparency and open communication with clients.
The platform offers a central location where a complete digital progress record of the site in 360° is housed. This demonstrates the existing conditions of a site before beginning work and visually displays a site’s progress over time using HoloBuilder’s TimeTravel feature.
Besides that, you can also provide your clients with report-like copies of your project using HoloBuilder’s SnapShot, which contains a chosen subset of the original project’s 360° photos. This is especially helpful for review meetings, as the client now has a visual understanding of the project progress and you can be assured that they can only view areas they are supposed to see.
Visual documentation of site progress can also be demonstrated to clients to create a more compelling case for the value of your organization’s services. This capability is instrumental in building trust with clients throughout the project and winning future work.
Ensure secure data sharing
Concern about information security is understandable, given that improper data handling can expose organizations to threats such as malware installation and data theft. An organization’s security is jeopardized once its communication infrastructure is compromised.
Therefore, it’s essential to use technology which complies with frameworks such as SOC 2. HoloBuilder has completed its SOC 2 report for Service Organizations, demonstrating a high level of information security compliance. The strict security standards of SOC 2, tested through on-site audits, ensure that all information is being shared securely.
Conclusion
Software that can provide clarity and communication for teams is most effective when adopted enterprise-wide. This will take a certain degree of buy-in from all teams, but the payoff is worth it.
With a robust and easy-to-use system in place, communication, transparency, and trust are solidified – adding infinite value to your projects and potentially winning your organization’s future work with clients.
