Improving communication in your construction project goes through your schedule. If you want to learn more about how you can start seeing everything on site without getting lost in an ocean of disconnected data, download our free ebook below.
Follow us
Share this article
Timely communication is an essential component of success for every project with a lot of repetition in construction. Whether you are building a hospital, a school, an entire apartment block, or even a new road network, it is of paramount importance that your teams are connected around a centralised, live schedule.
By moving your project communication to the cloud, you can ensure that everyone stays on the same page and critical issues or last-minute changes are reported directly from the site in a timely manner.
Unfortunately, this is not the case for a big number of project managers and site foremen, as they have to spend more than 6 hours a week creating and maintaining different schedules. They have their master schedule stuck in MS Project, their 3-6 week lookaheads and procurement programme printed out on paper, and outdated reports trapped in Excel spreadsheets or email threads. Let alone the disconnected WhatsApp notifications or the contextless phone calls that could have been avoided.
All these multiple applications generate a lot of stress and a mountain of administrative work. But it’s not the project manager or the site foreman to blame for it. They are continuously asked to give a very tough battle, using tools that are not made for construction. In other words, tools that aren’t built to connect construction teams and support project communication.
Under these circumstances, it’s impossible to maintain the rhythm of your project at a good pace. How could you change that? By understanding that planning is your project’s heartbeat. It’s like running a race. You should go neither too fast nor too slow.
This is why site to office communication is the bedrock of every construction project and why sharing the live version of your project’s schedule with your field teams matters. It’s the only way to make everyone facing the same direction and eliminate waiting time (also known as downtime).
How to improve communication in construction
In an effort to help you start delivering faster and, therefore, cheaper here are five ways you can improve communication in your construction projects:
1. Choose a digital tool that is construction specific
Finding a construction-specific digital tool is the first step towards bridging the gap between the site and the office. By offering your teams the possibility to report progress directly from the site, you make the decision-making process faster and add more clarity to the day-to-day operations. Everyone will have access to the same information just by using their mobile device.
In that way, they will always have a live, shareable view of the programme at their fingertips. Furthermore, they will be able to plan ahead and always come to the site prepared for their next tasks.
This seamless connection between the field and the office will also help you, as project manager or site foreman, to keep your project in view at all times and be in a position to track constant change, diversions, and movements.
2. Connect your teams to a single source of truth
Once the right software solution is in place, it’s time to start reaping the benefits. Many project managers admit that they still have to use more than 24 hours per month to collect scattered information from multiple sources and tools to keep all their programmes up to date.
So they constantly have to go back and forth with their foreman looking for the latest updates from the site. But that’s not all. Once they get the information they were after, they have to figure out what the impact of each update is on the development of the project.
This is why moving all project communication to a centralised place in the cloud is a game changer. It suddenly becomes extremely easier for all teams to keep full visibility over their tasks and for you to deal with big chunks of data faster and more efficiently.
The right people gain access to the right information just by using their smartphone so that everybody knows where they stand and whether a task or material order needs to be rescheduled. No more communication silos that can push your project significantly behind.
3. Integrate your schedules
The last but equally important step is to connect your schedules. You might know better than us how challenging it is to monitor and keep so many different schedules up to date at all times. You have the master schedule, the 3-6 week lookaheads, the purchase programme, and the document approval schedule.
This makes it very difficult to see the aggregate impact of problems and changes, which is necessary in order to make timely and well-informed decisions.
Now if you also store critical information in multiple disconnected tools and formats (Excel, MS Project, Primavera P6, Powerproject, even whiteboards and paper notes), or communicate via email, SMS and WhatsApp, the problem gets even bigger.
This is why you need a construction-specific tool that will allow you to create a seamless link between the different schedules and effortlessly monitor the impact of the latest updates from the site on each one of them.
In that manner, you will soon be able to:
never miss an important milestone or development again.
boost visibility and transparency between project teams.
improve communication with subcontractors.
achieve full alignment between on-site and off-site teams.
Connect everyone. Align better.
Improving communication in your construction project goes through your schedule. If you want to learn more about how you can start seeing everything on site without getting lost in an ocean of disconnected data, download our free ebook here.
We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept all”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. For more information, please visit our Privacy Policy and DPA.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously.
Cookie
Duration
Description
__cfruid
session
This cookie is set by the provider Cloudflare. This cookie is used for load balancing and for identifying trusted web traffic.
__hssrc
session
This cookie is set by Hubspot. According to their documentation, whenever HubSpot changes the session cookie, this cookie is also set to determine if the visitor has restarted their browser. If this cookie does not exist when HubSpot manages cookies, it is considered a new session.
cf_use_ob
This cookie is set by the provider Cloudflare content delivery network. This cookie is used for determining whether it should continue serving "Always Online" until the cookie expires.
cookielawinfo-checbox-analytics
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checbox-functional
11 months
The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checbox-others
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-advertisement
1 year
The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Advertisement".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
gdpr_status
6 months 2 days
This cookie is set by the provider Media.net. This cookie is used to check the status whether the user has accepted the cookie consent box. It also helps in not showing the cookie consent box upon re-entry to the website.
JSESSIONID
session
Used by sites written in JSP. General purpose platform session cookies that are used to maintain users' state across page requests.
viewed_cookie_policy
11 months
The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
XSRF-TOKEN
2 hours
The cookie is set by Wix website building platform on Wix website. The cookie is used for security purposes.
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Cookie
Duration
Description
__cf_bm
30 minutes
This cookie is set by CloudFlare. The cookie is used to support Cloudflare Bot Management.
__hssc
30 minutes
This cookie is set by HubSpot. The purpose of the cookie is to keep track of sessions. This is used to determine if HubSpot should increment the session number and timestamps in the __hstc cookie. It contains the domain, viewCount (increments each pageView in a session), and session start timestamp.
bcookie
2 years
This cookie is set by linkedIn. The purpose of the cookie is to enable LinkedIn functionalities on the page.
lang
session
This cookie is used to store the language preferences of a user to serve up content in that stored language the next time user visit the website.
lidc
1 day
This cookie is set by LinkedIn and used for routing.
pll_language
1 year
This cookie is set by Polylang plugin for WordPress powered websites. The cookie stores the language code of the last browsed page.
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Cookie
Duration
Description
_fs
16 years 7 months 14 days 10 hours
This cookie is provided by Google Tag Manager. This cookie is used for collecting information on user preferences and the behaviour with web campaign content. This is used by website owners for promoting products and events.
_gat
1 minute
This cookies is installed by Google Universal Analytics to throttle the request rate to limit the colllection of data on high traffic sites.
_gat_UA-136886650-2
1 minute
This is a pattern type cookie set by Google Analytics, where the pattern element on the name contains the unique identity number of the account or website it relates to. It appears to be a variation of the _gat cookie which is used to limit the amount of data recorded by Google on high traffic volume websites.
YSC
session
This cookies is set by Youtube and is used to track the views of embedded videos.
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Cookie
Duration
Description
__hstc
1 year 24 days
This cookie is set by Hubspot and is used for tracking visitors. It contains the domain, utk, initial timestamp (first visit), last timestamp (last visit), current timestamp (this visit), and session number (increments for each subsequent session).
_ga
2 years
This cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to calculate visitor, session, campaign data and keep track of site usage for the site's analytics report. The cookies store information anonymously and assign a randomly generated number to identify unique visitors.
_gat_gtag_UA_136886650_2
1 minute
This cookie is set by Google and is used to distinguish users.
_gcl_au
3 months
This cookie is used by Google Analytics to understand user interaction with the website.
_gid
1 day
This cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to store information of how visitors use a website and helps in creating an analytics report of how the website is doing. The data collected including the number visitors, the source where they have come from, and the pages visted in an anonymous form.
_hjFirstSeen
30 minutes
This is set by Hotjar to identify a new user’s first session. It stores a true/false value, indicating whether this was the first time Hotjar saw this user. It is used by Recording filters to identify new user sessions.
hubspotutk
1 year 24 days
This cookie is used by HubSpot to keep track of the visitors to the website. This cookie is passed to Hubspot on form submission and used when deduplicating contacts.
vuid
2 years
This domain of this cookie is owned by Vimeo. This cookie is used by vimeo to collect tracking information. It sets a unique ID to embed videos to the website.
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
Cookie
Duration
Description
_fbp
3 months
This cookie is set by Facebook to deliver advertisement when they are on Facebook or a digital platform powered by Facebook advertising after visiting this website.
bscookie
2 years
This cookie is a browser ID cookie set by Linked share Buttons and ad tags.
fr
3 months
The cookie is set by Facebook to show relevant advertisments to the users and measure and improve the advertisements. The cookie also tracks the behavior of the user across the web on sites that have Facebook pixel or Facebook social plugin.
IDE
1 year 24 days
Used by Google DoubleClick and stores information about how the user uses the website and any other advertisement before visiting the website. This is used to present users with ads that are relevant to them according to the user profile.
NID
6 months
This cookie is used to a profile based on user's interest and display personalized ads to the users.
test_cookie
15 minutes
This cookie is set by doubleclick.net. The purpose of the cookie is to determine if the user's browser supports cookies.
VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE
5 months 27 days
This cookie is set by Youtube. Used to track the information of the embedded YouTube videos on a website.
Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet.
Cookie
Duration
Description
_hjAbsoluteSessionInProgress
30 minutes
No description
_hjid
1 year
This cookie is set by Hotjar. This cookie is set when the customer first lands on a page with the Hotjar script. It is used to persist the random user ID, unique to that site on the browser. This ensures that behavior in subsequent visits to the same site will be attributed to the same user ID.
_hjIncludedInPageviewSample
2 minutes
No description
_hjIncludedInSessionSample
2 minutes
No description
_hjTLDTest
session
No description
_webby_visitor_token
1 month
No description
_webby_visitor_visitedWidgets
1 month
No description
AnalyticsSyncHistory
1 month
No description
attribution_user_id
1 year
This cookie is set by the provider Typeform. This cookie is used for Typeform usage statistics. It is used in context with the website's pop-up questionnaires and messengering.
CONSENT
16 years 7 months 14 days 10 hours
No description
conv_person
2 years
No description
conv_session
2 years
No description
dummy-0.09508643506619041
1 day
No description
dummy-0.1209258797013899
1 day
No description
dummy-0.3248294106557308
1 day
No description
dummy-0.8272572203435371
1 day
No description
hyperise_session
2 hours
No description
IZCID
41 years 25 days
No description
li_gc
2 years
No description
mtsnb_lastvisit_posts
10 years
No description
mtsnb_lastvisited
10 years
No description
RUL
1 year
No description
session
session
No description
UID
2 years
No description
UserMatchHistory
1 month
Linkedin - Used to track visitors on multiple websites, in order to present relevant advertisement based on the visitor's preferences.