If you work in construction, you are probably familiar with the blaming game amongst your construction team. This blaming game is the finger-pointing phase where things tend to go wrong and everybody starts looking for someone else to blame for project delays, cost overruns, and other forms of struggles that occurred during the project.
In this blog, we will share with you some actionable tips on preventing the blame game and avoiding further mishaps, helping you and your team decide properly and deliver projects faster.
When Blame Game Happens
It is given that construction projects are always complex. Several stakeholders and teams are coming together to complete the tasks and activities according to the agreed plan. It is apparent that collaboration is integral to making everyone on the same page. Therefore, preventing some blaming games from happening. The blame game occurs when things didn’t go according to plan, and a lot of gaps arise.
Constantly blaming one another is still something that everyone struggles with within the construction sector. You’ll agree that your team is going through the same thing, too, right? This directly impacts how your projects develop since many interruptions emerge onsite due to the project stakeholders and other members’ unwillingness to take on the blame and the late flagging of critical issues.
It is worth stating that 44% of project delays directly result from interruptions caused by the blame game. If you go a bit deeper, you will notice that the four main reasons behind this 44% appear to be the following:
- Delays due to late replies to RFIs
- Delays due to errors
- Change to specifications
- Poor weather conditions and other factors
It does not take much to fully realize that reducing delays and problems during execution must be the primary focal point for keeping your project budget under control. Initiate a meaningful change in how your team works with each other and how much they trust one another.
People, Processes, and Tools – The Three Keys to Success
Digital construction techs continually transform how everyone works, collaborates, and eventually builds in the construction sector. However, these construction software tools remain challenging to use and implement at their full potential unless you have all these three critical components in place – processes, people, and tools.
The three components sound simple, but they are more challenging than you may think:
- Your People are the cornerstone of this particular effort. Convincing them to trust their coworkers and newly implemented technologies is the first two steps towards a significant change.
- Next comes the search for tools like construction scheduling software that matches your construction project’s needs and standard processes that will allow you to make the most out of this cloud-based software solution within your organization.
- Now that you have people and determine the tools you must be using, it is time to scale up your focus in standardizing your processes.
In many cases, as the project manager, you often make mistakes of going after fancy instead of considering the actual needs of your projects. This results in working with software solutions that are not a good fit for your processes, adding even more gaps and confusion to your workflow. We suggest you always standardize everything, especially before looking for the right software solution.
Four Actionable Steps to Achieve a Collaborative Model
In order to get away from the blame culture and reinforce trust within your team, there is a need to embrace a new collaborative model fully. Here are four helpful steps you and your team should take, including other stakeholders in construction, to move towards a more collaborative ecosystem.
1. Assess the collaboration gameness of your company
Knowing your company’s weak and strong points is of significant importance for the successful outcome of the process. Here are the common parameters you have to consider when you start assessing collaboration readiness:
· Flexible project culture and operative project management for construction
- Having a solid organization system that allows the implementation of the latest collaborative approach across all phases of the organization.
- The making and maintenance of a robust portfolio of your projects to support the long-term strategies of your company
- Openness to take on risks and adopt a risk-management and forward-thinking philosophy.
2. Define your projects in detail
Another highlighted critical factor is that project owners have to define the scope of a project during the early stage. The main reason for this is to craft a solid plan for project execution and accurate cost estimates. Doing so helps you increase your chances of having your projects achieve healthy financial progress, leading to lesser risks and much higher profit returns.
3. Find the right partners
Having the right partners with your side will make a huge difference. You have to initiate alliances with stakeholders and organizations who share the same working culture but have a different set of capacities so that you can complement each other. Financial stability is one of the major keys to guaranteeing the longevity of your partnership.
In any case, be prepared to meet some resistance from the start. In fact, this should come as no surprise given that a new way of working will be introduced.
4. Keep all your partners on the same page
Keeping all your stakeholders and crew members aligned in terms of tasks, goals, and responsibilities is crucial for the overall success of a process like that. It is essential that you do not allow any distractions between the team and the end goals. Therefore, the project owner must provide all sides with incentives to keep them valued and proactive. This is one safe way to ensure that all project stakeholders can work together to complete the overall collaboration successfully.
How Can You Support Your Collaboration Journey?
1. Go digital with your reporting process
Your construction projects may differ in terms of complexities and goals, but there is always one primary aspect that remains the same. And that is how your project teams effectively report issues on site. In some cases, your teams are hesitant to report a major issue for fear of being held accountable for possible mistakes. As a result, it leads to confidential information and not being communicated until too late.
Going digital with the overall process can effectively end that, allocating responsibilities to the right sources. When we say you go digital, we meant to encourage you to deploy a reliable and topnotch construction management software like Pro Crew Schedule. It is designed for construction professionals to make planning and construction crew management easier and seamless to do.
2. Implement and improve
In the end, everything comes down to taking action and beginning implementing a new way of communicating and collaborating around a particular project. Breaking the circle of mistrust and misunderstanding leads to a much better-functioning industry where the successful execution of the project becomes faster and positive margins are not the exception but the rule.
3. Replace old habits and escape admin work
Lack of trust and lack of strong culture are two of the major issues you are about to face when managing construction projects and your people. Therefore, it is now the time to break the circle of bad habits within your company. Things have to change necessarily. In the entirety of your company, delivering successful outcomes should turn into cornerstone habits. But for that to happen, you need to rebuild trust between your project stakeholders and collaborate transparently.
On the contrary, you must adopt a proactive approach. The earlier the problem is noticed, the higher the chances of resolving it without consequences for your team and your project.
4. Invest in Pro Crew Schedule
Last but not least, you need to consider investing in construction-specific software tools. As a project manager, you are responsible and accountable for a number of projects simultaneously. And given the complexities of your projects, it is clear that they can turn into some serious bottlenecks when it comes to the decision-making process.
With that being said, it does not take much to understand that you and your team should be equipped with the proper construction software tools to make things easier. Here is how Pro Crew Schedule enters into the story. This subcontractor scheduling software tool is proven to be a real game-changer! Getting updates and information is easier for all your stakeholders while maintaining an accurate overview of the master plan and lookaheads.
Are you ready to cut back the number of problems your projects face and prevent the blame game? Start your 30-day trial for FREE! Click here.
Key Takeaways
Not all blame game situations have such serious consequences. However, failures may happen, and no failure is desirable. That is why anything that sounds like a problem with you, your team and stakeholders should be prevented. It is highly suggested to improve collaboration and communication and enable it through leading-edge construction technology and modern processes.
