Construction projects are complex in several aspects. The stakes are high for all parties involved and there are legal, financial and long-term reputations consequences of project delays and poor management. To achieve effective project management, developing a deep understanding of how and where chaos can spring from is essential. All it takes is one weak link in the larger scheme of things to trigger a sequence of management mishaps leading to ballooned costs, delayed deliveries and a lot of stress to all stakeholders. Streamlining projects is all about keeping this weak link away and maneuvering the factors causing chaos.
For streamline projects, it is important to narrow down the problems and find specific solutions to these challenges. Here is a list of factors that cause construction projects to go haywire.
Not surprisingly, every study reveals that this is the top most reason for projects getting delayed or derailed. When peer to peer or across the board communication is not streamlined, it can lead to a host of problems ultimately leading a total breakdown of overall communication. From scope creep to accountability issues, it can snowball into a major crisis leading to project delays or need for redoing parts of it - all of which costs time and money.
The key to managing a complex project effectively lies in streamlined documentation. Poor documentation often leads to misunderstood scope of work, serious lapses in task execution and incorrect execution of designs and plans. This strains relationships with clients and often times even amongst internal stakeholders. It is mostly a result of following traditional methods of documentation often paper-based. Unintentional manual errors owing to these methods are often why the overall standard of documentation gets negatively impacted.
Timely availability of the right information is critical to executing projects. When archaic methods are in place, the chances for unavailability of information or inaccuracies creeping into the system are high. This increases the risk of incorrect execution often resulting in rework. This impacts quality and cost. To make sure that the right information is available to their right stakeholder at the right time is of paramount importance for successful and timely execution of project tasks.
This also means that the right feedback loop needs to be set up wherein, at any point, someone realises a deviation or a red flag, they are equipped and empowered to blow the whistle and pave the way for early course correction.
When as-is statuses are marked incorrectly, that can cause new problems too. Recording the right information is thus critical for the entire project.
All of this is impossible to achieve when information capture and dissemination is paper-based or archaic.
One of the reasons for delayed information or stalling of projects could be due to not receiving timely approvals. Pending approvals can impede the speed of a project to a great extent and this can happen due to a host of factors. Ther approving authority can possibly not have the right set of contextual information needed to issue the approval. It could also be the case where approval is given but it takes time to reach the right set of stakeholders. This is highly likely when traditional project management practices are in place.
In large-scale construction projects, a change of scope mid-way is often likely. When it happens, if the changes are passed down to relevant teams in a timely fashion, scope creep of a large scale could be avoided. However, having traditional approaches to project management can delay this critical piece of information from travelling downstream resulting in massive gaps between what is planned and what is executed.
Weather, Material, Labour shortages are some of the other factors that pose challenges to smooth management of projects. These are majorly not in control of any individual or team. However, contingency plans need to be in place and proper documentation of variables affected by these factors have to be provisioned.
As seen in the above section, conventional approaches to project management consist of paper-based processes, especially forms. Manual forms are not uncommon in large-scale construction sites and projects. From basic logs to large audits, forms form a fundamental layer of primary data gathering for projects.
This form data across all aspects of construction projects which range from purchase order forms to vendor onboarding, spanning multiple functions and layers, is the basic building block that can impact the entire project. Hence, maintaining accuracy and ensuring real-time data is highly critical.
Assuming all of this is carried out through physical forms, here are the areas of concern that businesses should be aware of:
Hand-written forms can be hard to read and leaves a lot of room for errors. The cascading nature of the error further causes problems of much larger scale and is a sure shot way to derail smooth project management.
There is also a chance of human error while entering information in manual forms. The effect of both intentional and unintentional errors is practically the same.
While using manual forms, there is also a chance of losing or misplacing them, leading to loss of data, time lost in recovery/redo and a compromise on the safety of sensitive organizational data. This is an inevitable risk and the effect of it only aggravates with scale.
In addition to data loss, there is also room for unauthorised individuals to access and tamper with paper forms. This poses serious risks for data security.
This can also impact compliance and safety audits as this can violate several standards set by regulatory bodies.
When paper forms are used, there is a delay in transfer of information due to the logistics involved. The medium is not real-time and this can be a huge impediment in today’s digital world. Considering speed being a key competitive advantage, these delays can have a detrimental effect on the overall process execution resulting in delayed project completion.
Paper forms are hard to track and trace. This becomes even more pronounced when there is need for finding specific information or during any kind of reconciliation. This can lead to a lot of problems during security audits, compliance audits and several other critical situations. It can also strain vendor relationships due to delays in reconciliation.
When the scale of projects is large, individuals needing access to information are large. However, paper forms can be accessed concurrently only by a limited set of individuals. The versioning of forms further complicates this and limits the availability of critical information to only a certain individuals. This impedes smooth functioning of teams, disturbs collaboration and adds friction amongst teams.
Paper forms have a huge impact on the environment. Tonnes of paper is usually needed to run a project and this is not just expensive but also not sustainable. In addition to usage, disposal of past records is another challenge altogether.
Digital forms are modern-day tools that businesses can leverage to collect data. These forms are web-based and today’s digital forms are offered on the cloud. This is a fundamental shift from manual and paper-based forms. Digital forms are centrally administered, controlled and managed. This consolidates the management of all your primary sources of data critical for the project in one single place. This ties all the lose ends and is also more flexible to accommodate changes that occur from time to time.
Some of the key aspects of digital forms are:
Digital forms are web-based forms. This gives completely flexibility to alter, add and remove fields that are needed on the form from time-to-time. Since they are web-based, they become universally accessible(that can be controlled and curated). With the right levels of internet availability and speed, they can be real-time.
Digital forms allow a central administrator to control who has access to which forms. Whether it is a person who inputs data or consumes the data, everything can be managed via access control. This ensures that only authorised personnel get access to forms.
When there are errors, it is also possible to drill down and trace the origin of the error. This further makes it easy to fix them and make stakeholders more accountable and further enhance the integrity of data in the system.
Web-based forms are customizable to a high extent. One can maker any tweaks needed to the form at all times and it instantly reflects across the board. It is also possible to incorporate branding elements and customize the look and feel of forms. In addition, it also allows options to attach photos and images which is a common and critical requirement for construction projects. There is no easy way to accomplish this using manual forms.
Digital forms allow the option to keep versions and track them separately. This is helpful to back track and reconcile quickly.
Some of the ways construction projects can benefit out of digital forms are:
As digital forms improve the correctness of the data at a fundamental level, the chances of incorrect information percolating into the system is reduced. This improves the overall data quality and keeps data errors arising due to manual processes at bay. There is still a minor chance of some incorrect data entry even in digital forms but the ease of traceability helps identify it much quicker and address it before it becomes too big to control.
With real-time access to all stakeholders, the ability to roll out changes quickly and instant availability of the latest version of data, the overall speed of operations is reduced. Approval workflow can be much faster and the wait times are significantly reduced. There is also a way to set SLAs for workflows that makes it even more efficient and time-bound for teams to manage tasks.
With role-based access control, only authorised personnel have access to forms. This improves the overall security of business-critical data. It also is handy during the time of compliance audits.
Digital forms foster better collaboration amongst teams. There is no roadblock to approval cycles or availability of data for dependent teams. This reduces friction and also leaves time for innovation, process improvement and other futuristic ventures that can help the business differentiate itself.
The ability to quickly customise forms gives adaptability to processes. As the dynamics of the market change, businesses need to pivot their processes to stay ahead of the curve. This needs to start from the ground level. Centralised control of digital forms allows for this at record speed. This agility can be turned into a huge competitive advantage,
Digital forms better align with an organisation’s sustainability goal. With net zero goals becoming more and more relevant, this is a key advantage for businesses and an opportunity to cut their reliance on paper. The construction industry especially is under the scanner for emissions and by driving these initiatives, they can get a lot of leverage on carbon credits. This also saves a lot of cost.
Project management is a critical practice for construction businesses determining the competitiveness of a firm. The fundamental building blocks of a project are base level data that are collected through forms. Traditionally, manual forms have played a massive role in this. However, with the adoption of digitalization in construction management, this is fast changing. It is no longer a choice for businesses to continue using paper forms as they pose several challenges that we have seen.
Digital forms are the basic building blocks of innovation, collaboration and efficiency. By leveraging them, projects can be streamlined with ease. It also benefits the organisation in terms of improved security, data quality, adaptability and takes it closer to its sustainability goals. To evaluate how to use digital forms in your organization, click here.
