Missing project information, especially important updates, is a major culprit of project rework. One that is so common that trade contractors often can't be blamed because the information is so disconnected. But in reality, there are a number of ways that PEs, Supers, and admins can avoid missing information.
In addition to making some changes to everyday habits, you need to use the right software as well. There are a number of good options for contractors to solve these problems, but you have to know what to look for.
Here are 4 common ways project information gets missed - and how to fix the problem.
You know what information you need to look out for - RFIs, change orders, even a daily report that mentions an issue onsite. The problem is that checking for these things every day is hard, and you’re bound to miss something.
This is partly related to the inherent problem with the way project information is organized in siloed and nested folders, when the information is actually interconnected.
How to deal with project information that gets buried
The solution to buried information is to connect it and make those connections obvious and easily clickable to allow you to navigate from one document to another. The standard approaches today include:
But while these methods will help connect you to the information you’re looking for when you’re looking for it, it doesn’t help you find the information you don’t know about - like a design change, an RFI, or a new set of drawings.
Here’s a perfect example from one of our customers: a project to install a power distribution system with the typical documents - one-line diagrams, panel board schedules, and so on. During the project, the mechanical contractor submitted an RFI and substitution request that required a change to the circuit breaker and the panel board. A standard search would have missed these changes.
Where the Industry is Headed: Exposing Interconnected Information
Understanding that information in construction documents is so tightly interconnected, the future of document management will expose and exploit that interconnectivity for your benefit, so you never miss a change related to the work you’re doing, or about to start.
Our new Smart Links feature exposes the interconnectivity of information in any document. It’s currently in a limited access Beta while we test and refine the technology, though there is a demo to show you how it works. When launched into production, Smart Links will make sure that you don't miss a change related to the work you are doing.
Organizing documents in folders is standard practice in the industry, providing project managers, superintendents, and foremen with a sense of management and organization over their documents. There’s one folder for drawings, a nested folder for discipline, another folder for addendums, and so on.
But the bigger the construction project, the more information gets buried. The instinct to maintain control on bigger projects is to organize more with more folders and systems, but this actually makes the issue worse. It creates many additional layers that people need to search through, and that ultimately bury important information.
Interestingly, despite being the root cause of a considerable amount of administrative overhead and over-complexity, most end-users claim to appreciate it. In fact, when I go to trade shows and ask people how managing documents in Box or Sharepoint is working, most of the time they say it’s good.
The most common workaround for sharing information buried in folders is to email. Dozens of emails go out every day, and most are completely irrelevant to your task or project. Information may be disseminated, but it also gets lost this way.
How to overcome information being buried in folders
Invest in a construction-specific document management tool that has functionality that addresses the gaps left by folders:
Notifications are a powerful tool to highlight important updates when tailored to specific people or topics. Issues only arise when they’re not set up right.
A big mistake is to get too many notifications or get them too frequently. No one really wants every project update - just the information that relates to their team. When you feel swamped by notifications - especially if they are irrelevant - there’s only one outcome: you learn to ignore them.
I have this issue with our ticketing system called Jira, and it’s a safe bet that you probably ignore notifications the way I do: by sending them all to a folder, and searching my email if I realize I need something. Sound familiar?
And when I don’t know the ticket number or ticket name, I just end up scrolling through the full list, like in the picture below.
How to overcome noisy or irrelevant notifications
Successfully setting up tailored notifications gives you the Goldilocks effect - not too many or too few, just the right amount of relevant ones.
In construction platforms, there's usually a setting for your profile that allows you to control the notifications you receive. In DADO this is set up as Search Notifications, where you can select a filter or specific search to run for you and get notified of updates to the search results.
How to best tailor your notifications really depends on a number of factors - which software you are using and what they support, your personal preferences, and the nature of the project. Regardless of your role and team, here are some good guidelines to consider:
A binder should be a package of everything you need and keep all that information organized. But the nature of large, modern projects is that project teams are actually creating multiple sources of information to maintain.
Inevitably when you have more than one source of truth, they:So you have more project overhead to keep binders up-to-date, plus tracking and organizing the digital versions - which is just more administrative work.
That doesn’t just go for paper binders, it’s also creating new sources of information -printing the BIM model and tapping onto spools, mark-ups in a paper binder, communication in emails, the list goes on and on…
How to manage binders effectively
The ultimate goal is to have a single source of truth that all communication points back to. That’s a pretty high-level goal, so let’s break it down and give options of what is more comfortable for your teams…
As much as things change when it comes to how project documents are disseminated and what tools are available, one thing remains constant: construction-specific software that addresses these issues is beneficial to your business and will help reduce lost information.
By implementing our recommendations on how to avoid information getting buried, you’ll spend significantly less time searching and getting frustrated, regretting ignoring notifications, and losing information. And with less lost information, you’ll likely reduce rework on your projects.
Did you take any of these steps - and if so, where did you start? Let us know in the comments!