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Tag: Stakeholder

PMTimes_Sep04_2024

The Role of Emotional Intelligence in Agile Leadership and Program Management

Written by KC Lakshminarasimham on . Posted in Articles.

The success of agile projects increasingly relies on the emotional intelligence (EI) of leaders. Agile methodologies focus on teamwork, flexibility, and ongoing improvement—all of which are significantly influenced by a leader’s emotional awareness and ability to manage interpersonal relationships. This article explores how emotional intelligence is integral to agile leadership and program management, showing how it can be a driving force for project success and the development of a motivated, resilient team.

 

Understanding Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence, a concept brought to prominence by psychologist Daniel Goleman in the early 1990s, refers to the ability to recognize and manage one’s own emotions while also understanding and responding to the emotions of others. The five key components of emotional intelligence include:

  • Self-Awareness: Recognizing emotions as they occur and understanding their impact on behavior and thoughts.
  • Self-Regulation: Effectively managing emotions, controlling impulses, and adapting to change.
  • Motivation: Maintaining a strong drive to achieve goals, often setting high personal standards.
  • Empathy: Understanding and sharing the feelings of others, which is vital for building trust and strong relationships.
  • Social Skills: Successfully managing relationships, influencing others, and fostering effective teamwork.

For agile leaders, these elements are essential in navigating complex team dynamics, creating a positive work environment, aligning with company strategy and maintaining high performance in demanding situations.

 

The Intersection of EI and Agile Leadership

Agile leadership goes beyond simply guiding teams through sprints and meeting deadlines. It involves a deep understanding of team dynamics, individual motivations, and how change affects both morale and productivity. Leaders with strong emotional intelligence can apply their skills in several key areas:

Building Trust and Encouraging Collaboration

Trust is foundational for any agile team. Leaders who demonstrate empathy and strong social skills can create an environment where team members feel valued and confident in sharing their ideas. This trust fosters open communication, allowing for more effective collaboration and innovation without fear of failure. By addressing the emotional needs of the team, emotionally intelligent leaders can remove barriers to teamwork and ensure the group operates cohesively.

Improving Communication

Clear communication is critical in agile methodologies, whether during daily stand-ups, retrospectives, or sprint reviews. Leaders with high emotional intelligence excel at interpreting nonverbal cues and understanding the emotional dynamics within the team. They can adjust their communication style to fit the situation, ensuring that their messages are well-received and constructive. In parts, they have the ability to contextualize to the larger, strategic goal.  This nuanced approach to communication helps prevent misunderstandings and keeps everyone aligned on project objectives.

Handling Conflict Proactively

Conflict is inevitable in any team, especially in high-pressure agile environments. Leaders with strong emotional intelligence can identify early signs of conflict and address them before they escalate. By approaching disagreements with empathy and a focus on resolution, these leaders can transform potential disruptions into opportunities for growth. Empathy develops over experience and leaders bring in more empathy with their experience. They encourage open dialogue and help team members resolve issues in a way that strengthens relationships rather than damaging them.

Motivating and Engaging the Team

Understanding what motivates different team members is key to driving performance. Leaders with high emotional intelligence recognize that individuals are motivated by various factors—whether it’s the challenge of the work, the desire for recognition, or the opportunity for personal growth. By aligning tasks with team members’ strengths and interests, emotionally intelligent leaders can boost engagement and productivity. They are well aware of balancing motivations and handling conflicts that may arise. Additionally, they maintain a positive team atmosphere by acknowledging efforts and celebrating achievements, keeping morale high even during challenging times.

 

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Program Management and Emotional Intelligence

In the broader realm of program management, where leaders oversee multiple agile projects and teams, the role of emotional intelligence gains significance. Program managers must not only guide their teams but also ensure alignment across different projects, stakeholders, and organizational goals. Here’s how emotional intelligence is crucial in program management:

Managing Stakeholder Relationships

Navigating the interests of diverse stakeholders is one of the most challenging aspects of program management. A high level of empathy and social awareness is needed to understand and address their concerns while keeping the program on track. Emotionally intelligent program managers handle these relationships with care, ensuring that stakeholder expectations are managed effectively and that their support is maintained throughout the program’s lifecycle. This skill is particularly vital in agile environments, where requirements and stakeholder needs can change rapidly.

 

Facilitating Change

Agile projects often involve significant changes, whether in processes, team structures, or project goals. Such changes can be met with resistance, especially if they disrupt established routines. Program managers with strong emotional intelligence can anticipate these reactions and manage them effectively. By clearly communicating the benefits of change and supporting their teams through transitions, they can reduce resistance and help their teams adapt more quickly, ensuring continued productivity.

 

Making Informed Decisions

In program management, decisions can have wide-ranging impacts across multiple teams and projects. Emotionally intelligent program managers consider not only the technical aspects of their decisions but also the emotional and relational consequences. They understand that the way a decision is communicated can be just as important as the decision itself. By involving the right people, considering emotional impacts, and communicating transparently, these leaders ensure that their decisions are well-received and supported by those affected.

 

Building Resilient Teams

The ability to build resilient teams is another area where emotional intelligence is invaluable. Agile projects, by their nature, involve iteration, and setbacks are inevitable. Program managers with high EI can help their teams recover from these setbacks by fostering a culture of learning and continuous improvement. They encourage reflection on failures, facilitate discussions on how to improve, and provide the emotional support necessary to keep the team focused and motivated for the next challenge.

 

Conclusion

Emotional intelligence is not just an optional trait for agile leaders and program managers—it is essential for their success. By developing their EI skills, leaders can improve team collaboration, resolve conflicts more effectively, and drive motivation and engagement. These abilities are crucial for the success of agile projects. As organizations continue to adopt agile methodologies, the demand for emotionally intelligent leaders will grow. Developing and leveraging these skills will be key to thriving in the complex, dynamic world of modern project management.

 

References

Goleman, D. (2005). Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ. Bantam Books.

Druskat, V. U., & Wolff, S. B. (2001). Building the Emotional Intelligence of Groups. Harvard Business Review.

Bradberry, T., & Greaves, J. (2009). Emotional Intelligence 2.0. TalentSmart.

Mayer, J. D., Salovey, P., & Caruso, D. R. (2009). Emotional Intelligence: Theory, Findings, and Implications. Psychological Inquiry.

Dulewicz, V., & Higgs, M. (2005). Assessing Leadership Styles and Organizational Context. Journal of Managerial Psychology.

Boyatzis, R. E., & Sala, F. (2004). The Emotional Competence Inventory. Hay Group.

PMTimes_Jun1_2024

The Value of a Project Charter

Written by Lauren Zinsmeister on . Posted in Articles.

If you’re familiar with the Project Management Book of Knowledge, or PMBOK for short, you know all about the Project Charter and its criticality to the success of a project. The PMBOK says that the project cannot start until the Project Sponsor formally signs off on the Charter.

 

Having worked at midsize companies for nearly 15 years, I learned that actual Project Charters with formal sign-off are more of a “big company” thing. To date, I haven’t once been required to write a Charter or get one approved to begin a project. Let me tell you why I insist on a Charter and have more than just the Project Sponsor sign off before I kick off a project. Come with me on this thought journey.

 

If I had to pick a single area of knowledge from the PMBOK as the most critical, I would pick Stakeholder Management. You can have the best plan and the best tools, but a tumultuous stakeholder situation can completely derail a project. On the flip side, you can have a scrappy team with few processes and subpar tools, but with committed people working well together, a project can succeed in spite of other project elements being challenging.

 

If I had to pick an area of knowledge to be second most critical, it would be Time Management. This encompasses your ability to scope the project, break it down into tasks, understand dependencies, build a project schedule, and keep the team aligned with each other as well as the schedule. In a sense, it’s a superset of a few other areas and captures the core of your project plan.

 

Enter the Project Charter, which I would argue is the most critical project artifact. Below are the basic elements of a good Project Charter:

  1. Problem statement
  2. Business case
  3. Goal statement
  4. Timeline
  5. Scope
  6. Team members

 

Diving into these 6 elements, we see 1, 2, 3, and 6 align to Stakeholder Management and 4 and 5 align to Time Management.

 

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Let’s start by looking at the Stakeholder Management elements.

  • Problem statement – Having this clearly written in the Charter ensures that key stakeholders agree a problem exists. They are agreeing on what that problem is. Finally, they are agreeing that this project is the right approach to solving the problem.
  • Business case – Here is where stakeholders are agreeing that this project is worth the resources. It’s possible to have everyone agree that a problem exists and needs to be solved, but it’s something entirely different to agree on its priority and resourcing.
  • Goal statement – Different people can look at the same problem and come to a different conclusion about how to solve it. Articulating the goal in writing will avoid assumptions and make it clear to stakeholders what everyone is working toward. Without stakeholder alignment on the project goal, the project is doomed to become tumultuous when the project team inevitably encounters a fork in the road.
  • Team members – We’ve agreed we have a problem to solve, we’ve agreed it’s worth investing in, and we’ve agreed on what the ultimate goal looks like. This section gets specific about whose time will need to be invested, what the commitment is, and what their responsibilities will be. Key stakeholders reviewing the Charter will be able to think through the impact on their teams and make sure they are able to commit the team members required. They will also be able to identify other team members who may not be listed, helping to complete the project team.

 

Our remaining two elements are tied to Time Management, though agreement on these is also inextricably tied to Stakeholder Management.

  • Timeline – To be able to write this section of the Charter, you will have had to do some high level project scoping and establish your project structure. Do you have phases? Stagger starts? Is your execution stage planned to be managed using Agile methodology, so the timeline needs to be flexible? All of those considerations and more are required for a timeline estimate. Putting this estimate in front of key stakeholders in the Charter ensures they understand the high level of time commitment. This provides an opportunity for discussion if some stakeholders think it needs to be completed faster or someone says they can’t commit the required resources for the deadline, so the project needs to be extended.
  • Scope – They say the devil is in the details, and this is where those details live. Clarity on scope allows for work estimates, project scheduling, and work coordination among team members. Clarity on out-of-scope work is just as important, because that enables you to define “done,” wrap up the project when in-scope deliverables are complete, and hand off deliverables and/or processes to business-as-usual owners for long-term ownership. The clearer you can be about your scope in the Charter, the fewer struggles you’ll have with scope creep later.

 

I personally expand on these base elements with a couple of my own tried-and-true tools. Seizing the opportunity to get stakeholder alignment, I also include the below:

  • Communication plan – I use this section to detail what information will be shared with which stakeholders as well as the method I will use. This is especially important if some team members or stakeholders are in different time zones, and even more important if there are people from multiple cultures. Communication norms vary in different cultures, so I like to ensure everyone knows what to expect and has an opportunity to raise a hand if they need something different from what I had originally planned.
  • Project change management – What are the criteria for something to be considered a project change? What process does it go through to be approved? Who has the authority to approve a change? Stakeholder alignment up front will save time and struggle when someone wants to add a deliverable to the project or expand the project to include related work that is discovered during project execution.

 

The Project Charter provides the best opportunity for you to detail critical components of your project and get stakeholder alignment. You can’t possibly list every detail, but you can align on your plans, processes, and expectations so everyone is working in the same way when questions and challenges inevitably arise.

PMTimes_Oct04_2023

A Self-study about the Impact of AI on Project Stakeholder Management

Written by Anju Aggarwal on . Posted in Articles.

I want to know the exact details of how AI can help project managers.

Not much concrete work is done in this area, so it is hard to find scientific papers or case studies about the impact of AI on project management. 

In this situation, I had to rely on the most powerful and trustworthy method, i.e., Self-help.

To understand the influence of AI, I picked one specific knowledge area: Project stakeholder management.

I will try to find out the benefit of using an AI tool or system on the four processes that comes under this knowledge area.

 

These days, I am reading loads of articles related to “AI in Project Management”. Being a PM, I always look for such articles with great curiosity and expectations. I want to understand how AI will impact project management.

 

To my dismay and frustration, most of such articles turn out to be fluff. I can categorize most of these articles into the following three brackets:

  • Some start with an explanation of AI and then get into details about different forms of AI like NLP (Natural Language Processing), ML (Machine Learning), Generative AI, etc.
  • A few articles mention various tools that use AI. Unfortunately, these tools had no relevance whatsoever to project management.
  • Many articles talk about the benefits of using AI in project management, such as automation, cost reductions, time savings, and better decision-making. In my opinion, all these benefits look like a general statement that goes for every other innovation too.

 

First, a refresher on what is project stakeholder management: 

Stakeholder management is the process of managing the expectations of anyone who has an interest in a project or will be affected by it.

 

The four process groups identified in project Stakeholder management are as follows:

  • Identify Stakeholders
  • Plan Stakeholder Management
  • Manage Stakeholder Engagement
  • Control Stakeholder Engagement

 

I will examine these processes and try to inject AI into their ITTO (Inputs, Tools, Techniques & Outputs) to the best of my knowledge.

I am not an expert in AI, so please correct me wherever you think there could be better usage of AI in that specific process.

 

Identify Stakeholders: Identify everyone, be it groups or individuals, affected positively or adversely by the project’s outcomes.

In this process, we check the existing project documents to identify all the stakeholders. These documents can be project charter, project proposal, or any contract created at the project beginning.

I do not think AI will be of any use in this process. Generally, a Project manager checks all these documents and lists all the stakeholders. PMs should also connect with project sponsors and other subject matter experts for their input in the stakeholders list.

 

Every project is unique in nature with its own enterprise environmental factors (EEF). In such a case, it is not possible to develop a ML model that provides predictions for unique projects.

Stakeholder analysis is one of the techniques used in this process. The primary goal of stakeholder analysis is to gather information about these stakeholders and use it to make informed decisions, manage relationships, and mitigate potential conflicts.

Can we use AI here? Can we Develop an ML model to categorize the stakeholders according to their power and influence automatically?

 

A few questions to ask: Is it worth the effort? What could be the maximum number of stakeholders in a project? Let us assume that the project is big and complex, so we have many stakeholders identified. Can we create a machine learning model by mapping different attributes like stakeholder’s interests, concerns, and influence and then classify them based on their level of interest and power or influence? The input data would vary a lot for each project. In such cases, the models would need a large amount of data for training to identify patterns for predictions.

 

Let’s assume we can create an ML model that can define stakeholders’ engagement strategy depending on their power/influence/interest. Will this model add much value to the organization’s productivity?

I feel a project manager could do the stakeholder analysis more quickly and accurately.

The output of this process is a stakeholder register.

 

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Plan Stakeholder Management: comes up with the management strategies required to engage stakeholders effectively.

This process also requires the PM to check project-related documents.

Mind mapping is one of the techniques used in this process. It is a visual tool.

 

Can AI be useful in this technique? We could automatically create a Mind map using the stakeholder register constructed in the previous process. PMs can then develop an engagement strategy or prioritize the engagement efforts based on the mind maps. This automated process saves time and effort for the Project managers.

Is this a good AI use case? No, according to me. The mind mapping tools might already have the feature to import a risk register as an Excel or doc file. So, I don’t think it is justified usage of ML for developing mind maps from Stakeholder risk register.

The output of this process is the Stakeholder Engagement Plan.

 

Manage Stakeholder Engagement: This process outputs effective communication with stakeholders and works with them to meet their needs through meaningful and appropriate involvement in project activities.

This is primarily an execution phase where documents are updated on a need basis. An ML model cannot predict this day-to-day process. So, an AI chatbot cannot replace a project manager here. A PM needs to have active interactions with stakeholders. PM needs to listen to what the stakeholder is saying and try to infer what the stakeholder is not saying.

The tools & Techniques in this process talk about interpersonal and communication skills, which are tough to emulate via an AI chatbot. I feel if a stakeholder gets to know that a bot is doing communication instead of a human PM, they might view it as a communication breach. I cannot imagine a stakeholders’ meeting where an AI bot is giving a status update report, and all the stakeholders are nodding their heads, feeling proud and in awe about this technology feat.

 

Control Stakeholder Engagement: This is the process of monitoring overall project stakeholder relationships and adjusting the strategies and plans for engaging stakeholders accordingly.

One of the techniques in this process is decision-making – Multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA)

MCDA is a structured approach for evaluating and comparing multiple criteria or factors when making decisions. It also requires data collection, assessment, monitoring, and readjustments.

We can use some software for decision-making that uses custom-trained ML models. I feel the attributes to train the models would be humongous and human centric. It would not be useful to create custom models for stakeholder engagement.

 

I have covered all four processes involved in the Project Stakeholder Engagement knowledge area.

In this exercise, I tried to put an unbiased perspective where I wanted to incorporate AI consciously in the Project Stakeholder Management knowledge area.

 

My concluding thoughts on how AI would impact Project Management:

The Project management stream requires more behavioral skills than technical skills. It requires human eyes, ears, brain, and heart. It cannot be completely replaced by Artificial Intelligence generated robots or systems.

 

As mentioned earlier, I am a project manager, not an AI expert. I would look forward to constructive input from other AI experts. But for the AI bots generated comments, please stay away!

 

PMTimes_Sep27_2023

Manage Your Opinions for Optimal Decisions

Written by George Pitagorsky on . Posted in Articles.

If you are ready to improve your team decision making “Do not search for the truth; only cease to cherish opinions.”[1]

When you cease to cherish opinions you avoid unnecessary conflict and achieve optimal decisions by allowing the “truth” to reveal itself through analysis, intuition, and dialog.

There is nothing wrong with opinions. Just don’t cherish them. To cherish them is to be attached to and identified with your opinions. Avoid this because it gets in the way of finding optimal decisions and it fuels unnecessary conflict and division.

 

What are opinions?

Everyone has opinions. They are the result of our experience, beliefs, knowledge, and training. They express our intelligence. They can be useful, and they can also get in the way.

Opinions are beliefs, points of view, assumptions, or judgements. They are not conclusive, not facts.

Often, we do not have the luxury of making fact-based decisions. Our issues may be too complex. Data may not be available. We may act on an opinion and gut feel, but if we do, it is best to do it with objectivity and self-awareness.

 

Objectivity and Self-awareness

Objectivity knows the difference between fact, certainty, and opinion. It values facts and realizes that subjectivity is also valuable. Self-awareness tells you when your attachment to your opinion is causing emotions to surface and you to resist questioning your opinion.

Together these two, objectivity and self-awareness, are key to effective relationships. And effective relationships are critical success factors. They are displayed in decision making, conflict management, planning, problem solving, change management – just about every aspect of project work or any kind of collaborative effort.

 

Managing Opinions

We are living in a time when beliefs and opinions are confused with facts and reality. People have lost the distinction between objectivity and subjectivity.

Are you willing to question and validate your beliefs and assumptions?

 

“When you see …, how belief, prejudice, conclusions, and ideals divide people and therefore breed conflict, you see that such activity is obviously not intelligence.

  Will you drop all your prejudices, all your opinions … so that you have a free, uncluttered mind?

If you say it is impossible, you will never find out for yourself what it is to be intelligent.” — J. Krishnamurti Excerpt from Can Conflict End?

 

Opinions Drive Action

Manage opinions well because they drive action. We hold opinions about team values, what vendor to use, how best to perform some tasks, who to hire, promote, or fire, and more. Opinions directly affect performance because they influence decisions.

Clearly, we want to make sure we understand the need to put opinions under the microscope and see their source and why we have them. Our approach is to balance opinions and fact-based analysis to make decisions that consider opinions and seek optimal results.

 

Attached

Being attached to and identified with opinions gets in the way. What does it mean to be attached to and identified with your opinions?

It means that you are so convinced that your opinion is “right” that you reject or suppress alternative opinions and refuse to question and validate your own. You are cherishing your opinion as if it were a part of your body. When you see it as an idea, a concept, you can value your opinion without being attached to it. This allows you to be open and respectful of other opinions.

Valuing is different than cherishing. You value your opinion because you think it is well founded on a strong belief, experience, data, theory, etc. You value it enough to state it and argue for it. And you also value the learning you get from exploring and validating your opinion.

 

Learning

Learning may strengthen your conviction that your opinion is worthy of being acted upon. Or it may show you that your opinion is not worth holding onto.

Learning comes out of dialog with opinions being shared and supported by the reasoning behind them. Be open to changing opinions to reach win-win outcomes and the actionable decisions that resolve issues most effectively.

 

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Beliefs

When opinions are based on strong beliefs, for example the belief that agile project management is always better than alternatives, there is a need to explore and question the underlying belief.

Fortunately, in project work we are less likely to find strong underlying beliefs driving decisions. When they do present themselves, we can justify confronting them because it is part of our best practices.

With beliefs regarding social and political issues it is not so easy. While these beliefs and the opinions that grow out of them is important, it is best to address them outside of business decision making.

 

Exploring Opinions

Should the sponsor of a project express her opinion, for example, “AI is too immature to waste our time looking at it”? Even if she isn’t convinced about her opinion, it will influence the team. As a leader, it is wise to hold back and open the space for opinions to be shared easily.

Other team members may have the opinion that there is something to be gained and that it won’t take much to explore how an available tool might be used to make the project go more smoothly with less effort and higher quality.

Wise leaders ask questions that lead the team (including the leader) to identify opinions and explore them to find the best outcome.

Are assertions backed by facts? For example, is AI not mature enough? Would it be too costly to explore? What biases are at work? What does ‘too costly’ mean?

 

Decision Making

Managing opinions is one part of decision making — the process that settles conflicts, underpins planning, vendor selection, and every aspect of team performance. It is a mission critical capability, no matter what the mission.

 

In the following articles I have explored decision-making from different perspectives:

 

[1] Seng-ts’an The Third Zen Patriarch,  Hsin Hsin Ming (Verses on Faith in Mind).
PMTimes_Aug9_2023

Five Ways Construction Companies Can Avoid “Technical Debt”

Written by Lucas Marshall on . Posted in Articles.

This article was cowritten by Lucas Marshall and Robert LaCosse of Milwaukee Tool.

 

Construction companies know the importance of integrating their systems (e.g., 85.1% of owners viewed mobile integrations as a “very important” or “important” priority in the 2021 ConTech Report). Yet, full-system integration remains an industry challenge – a global KPMG study revealed that a measly 16% of executives surveyed reported their organizations have fully integrated systems and tools.

 

In early 2023, 40% of SMBs in the construction industry stated they’d be looking to upgrade their software in the next 12 months.

When deploying any software system, you run the risk of accruing technical debt – a term that commonly fits into the vernacular of software developers and represents the #1 biggest threats according to 69% of business leaders.

 

An academic study revealed that 75% of technical debt instances originate from clunky legacy software systems. Many construction companies on legacy software systems may find themselves in a catch-22: Addressing the technical debt of their legacy system or facing downtime to deploy and learn a more cloud-friendly, adaptable solution.

In this article, we define what tech debt might look like at a construction company and offer five ways to avoid it or put solutions toward it.

 

What Is Technical Debt?

In short, technical debt refers to the dependencies one introduces when deploying new software and hardware solutions.

A dependency may be one system not communicating with another, or perhaps an accumulation of software bugs that make a software interface sluggish and hard to use.

Technical debt, like financial debt that can lead a person to bankruptcy if left to accumulate, poses a significant business risk; growing technical debt, that is, refers to the cascading effect that happens when these dependencies, ignored, exponentially propagate and become insurmountable, involving massive operational costs to fully resolve.

 

Examples of a Construction Company’s Tech Debt

  • Mobile apps not integrating with construction ERPs
  • Single-application heritage systems running on outdated hardware
  • Time needed to learn new software
  • Discovery time needed to perform security risk assessments of new system

 

Five Ways to Avoid Tech Debt

Now that we’ve established what technical debt may mean to a construction company, here are five ways to avoid tech debt from accumulating:

 

1. Embrace a Culture of Collaboration over Isolation: Rituals, Governance, and Retrospectives

A retrospective is a classic practice in Agile software development where teams reflect on recently completed work and, through these rituals, the team gets more efficient and collaboration yields greater productivity over time.

 

Planning Poker

Planning poker is a conversational tool that exists online and physically – it’s a great tool for facilitating critical discussion. It centers on the reality that if you want to avoid technical debt – which can emerge from complexities not commonly understood by all stakeholders – you need to implement a process whereby all stakeholders, or more importantly all disciplines, have the ability to voice what they believe or know to be benefits and threats of any implementation.

“Collaboration” Apps and Systems

A joint-Autodesk/FMI study revealed that construction has some work to do in terms of collaboration:

  • 60% of general contractors see problems with coordination and communication between project team members and issues with the quality of contract documents as the key contributors to decreased labor productivity.
  • 68% of trades point to poor schedule management as the key contributors to decreased labor productivity.
  • 9% of construction industry professionals say that the top reason for miscommunication is unresponsiveness to questions/requests.

 

Construction companies can address these collaboration pitfalls by: Adopting cloud-based productivity apps and encouraging company-wide usage. Conveniently accessible communication apps like Slack can empower back-office workers as well as those in the field to communicate with each other more seamlessly, while powerful project management apps like Procore can help construction managers oversee full-lifecycle projects onsite. We’ve built our tool management app with workflows in mind – allowing, for example, tool managers to text or email team members from their smartphone contacts list without leaving the app. It’s of course important to stress, though, a collaboration platform, no matter how powerful, can’t empower its users unless they actually commit to using it together! Our advice: Pick an app and integrate it with other teams’ apps and systems (see in our next section about integrations) to avoid information silos.

 

2. Hire a Dedicated Software Engineer, Technologist, or CTO

A construction technologist is an important, emerging role within an organization that oversees a company’s construction technology program—responsible for researching and piloting advanced technology (see in next section).

 

True, labor shortages in the construction industry are staggering, though the US construction market is expected to continue to grow. Mass layoffs in the tech industry present a unique opportunity to absorb the tech industry’s displaced software engineering talent to help address the industry’s productivity challenges:

 

  • Addressing Technical Debt – In lieu of three months downtime to fully port over one system for another, software engineering expertise can guide a company in taking a portion of a larger software ecosystem offline at a time and replacing it with a part, but there are complexities and hairiness to that, which will require nuanced expertise.
  • Integrations – Building connectors between project management and an ERP, connecting specialty design to prefab, BIM and asset management, etc., to limit manual reentry of project information, remove data silos, and better connect the flow of project data between your teams’ various software systems and apps.
  • Open APIs – Open APIs allow software providers to empower your company’s technical team; in the event an integration doesn’t exist, technologists have the tools to build a custom solution in the short-term.

 

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3. Embrace Technology

It may sound counterintuitive—to attack technical obstacles by introducing more technology, especially when 42% didn’t have a budget for IT (according to the same ConTech report). But successful pilot programs and onboarding can empower contractors and business owners to deploy technology in a meaningful, outcomes-driven way:

 

  • BIM – Building information modeling, the digital tools of trade that architects, engineers, and contractors use to create unified, collaborative, multi-dimensional representations of built environments and infrastructure can mitigate risk and shorten project timelines by 50%, according to a scientific case study.
  • Industrialized Construction is not so much a technology as a complete redefinition of construction processes in favor of “productization” over one-off projects that improves quality, consistency, and value for customers. It takes advantage of multiple approaches, such as:
    • Offsite construction – both prefabrication and modular prefabrication – which moves preassembly of certain components to an offsite, manufacturing-style facility, and which has proven to increase project timeliness by 50% while reducing waste by 20%.
    • 3D Printing – 3D printing (aka: additive manufacturing) offer rapid design freedom and speed of delivery, delivering a 10-house community in China in a single day, for example. Respondents surveyed about their use of 3D printers reported the following benefits they viewed as most important: Ability to create complex geometrical objects, 69%; Value of quick iteration of products, 52%; Mass customization abilities, 41%.
  • Drones – Drones can be used ahead of breaking ground on projects in land surveying just as they can be used to provide real-time project reality capture.
  • Robots – Robots can be used to automate procedural tasks to free skilled trades to tend to tasks that require a higher degree of human intelligence; they can also keep workers out of harm’s way by automating dangerous tasks.
  • Smart Tools – Smart power tools can deliver installations faster and safer, using advanced technology like machine learning to protect operators against dangerous kickback events. Advanced software/hardware interaction can be used to dial in precision settings for application-specific repeatability, utilization data from events performed on tools in the field can be packaged up in a fully customizable reporting suite to provide proof-of-work documentation to customers, building inspectors, and stakeholders.
  • Generative AI – It may be a faux pas in certain circles, but exploring realistic ways in which generative AI may fit into construction workflows (e.g., assisting project managers, inventory managers, construction safety trainers, etc.) is critical as the industry looks to execute on growing backlogs.

 

4. Lean Construction

Just as agile software seeks to improve quality over time, lean construction is an approach to the business of building things that aims to minimize waste and maximize value for all stakeholders by reducing waste commonly encountered on construction sites such as:

 

  • Excessive material handling
  • Rework
  • Design errors
  • Conflicts between trades
  • Conflicts between other contractors
  • Ineffective supply chains

 

5. Digital Twins and IoT

Digital twin technology seeks to mirror real systems and drive smarter, predictive analytics with real-time sensor data through machine learning and artificial intelligence – and it’s helped reduce rework in manufacturing by 15-20%.

Digital twins aggerate data through related IoT sensors that can be used in construction to keep track of tools and equipment in real-time across various jobsites as well as drive safer, smarter installations.

McKinsey some six years ago predicted the rise of IoT devices to empower companies to monitor and repair equipment in real-time through automated alerts for preventive maintenance, inventory management and ordering, quality assessment (i.e., “smart structures”), energy efficiency, and safety.

Today, many of those predictions have come true; with the launch of Apple’s Vision Pro recently, renewed discussion in the construction wearable space, for example, is worth having to enhance safety training.

 

Bottom Line

The construction industry, strapped for talent (both skilled trades and engineering), is rife with opportunities for technical debt – however, there’s a myriad of tools at a business owner or technologist’s disposal to prevent technical debt from getting out of hand.

 

We recommend:

  1. Collaboration and ownership through project retrospectives
  2. Hiring a Dedicated Software Engineer, Technologist, or CTO – perhaps displaced talent from the technology sector
  3. Embracing advanced technology
  4. Embracing lean construction principles
  5. Supercharging your data analytics via digital twins and IoT

 

Robert LaCosse is a User Experience strategist with over 10 years of experience improving user experiences for major companies like Intel and Razorfish. At Milwaukee Tool, he is a leader in the UX Research discipline, responsible for ritualizing user research practices for One-Key software products. He also serves as a UX mentor and adjunct professor of computer science at Clark College in Washington state.