Ask the experts: Overcoming communication silos to harness the power of real-time data and insights

With so many stakeholders involved in each project, communication is critical in the AEC space, yet the industry struggles with effective communication. This can have negative ramifications as silos can cause stagnated productivity and increase error prone and redundant work. Technology is helping firms address these challenges while increasing collaboration and delivering real-time data and insights. We spoke with two of our AEC industry consultants for more insight on this important topic.

Let’s meet this month’s experts:

Q&A with our experts

We spoke with Mateusz and Aly about some of the communication challenges they’re seeing in the industry and how technology can help. Here’s what they had to say.

What are some tips and tricks to help firms overcome communication silos?

Mateusz: Today’s market belongs to companies who have left silos behind and improved their collaboration methods. Modern communication is not based on a department-to-department model anymore, but rather all employees contributing to one structured environment, such as a cloud database. This provides much better situational awareness for top management, improves the quality of data analytics, and speeds up the decision-making process.

The best way to improve communication is by implementing cloud solutions that foster digital transformation. Communication is challenging in the AEC industry because construction projects are temporary and often non-repeatable. The construction process usually lasts 1-2 years, so an average project team comprised of investors, designers, general contractors, subcontractors, and others, often goes through temporary technology deployments that are decommissioned after project completion and then have to learn new tools and communication processes again for each new project. This is not an effective way to collaborate. Modern AEC cloud platforms provide a comprehensive and streamlined approach to overcome these stakeholder collaboration challenges.

Aly: It is imperative that all stakeholders have a shared vision and agreed upon goals, as well as an understanding of how each team can help support those goals. Too often silos form when each department puts its own interests above the common vision and goals. When team members have a solid understanding of how they, as well as other team members, contribute to the big picture they can begin to see each team as links in a chain, instead of as separate silos. Assigning cross-functional liaisons and having them meet regularly can also help encourage communication between multiple departments. Team leads can discuss progress, focusing on dependencies with other departments. The transparency fostered in these meetings will lead to closer working relationships between departments, and ultimately encourage resource sharing, instead of resource hoarding.

Team building exercises across departments are another great way to break down communication barriers, especially when conducted outside of a work setting. You could form teams with one person from each department to help encourage teams to get to know colleagues they don’t work with on a daily basis. Employees may start to see their colleagues in a different light and are likely to form new friendships, which can also help to break down communication silos.

What other advice do you have on how firms can foster a more collaborative environment?

Aly: As I mentioned earlier, it is important that department managers have shared common goals and adopt the mindset that the free flow of information will benefit the entire organisation. Collaboration in any organisation is built on trust, so it is important to make honesty, transparency, and collaboration core values of your organisation and to lead by example.

Technology can also help scale collaboration efforts and connect teams around the world. Cloud platforms allow for proactive communication using modern chatting and conferencing tools, real-time progress tracking across multiple projects, resource sharing and much more.

Teams should also recognize and reward efforts to improve communication. Celebrating victories achieved through collaboration encourages teams to increase their collaboration efforts, which can in turn lead to greater innovation and creativity. It is also important to remember that it all starts with small changes.

Mateusz: The more people collaborate in the same database, the more effective their processes become. With a cloud platform, a company can easily add external stakeholders, so they can all collaborate in one common environment. For example, subcontractors can easily log in and download the latest version of design documentation and place offers by filling out forms online, while investors can quickly log in and check the latest progress on their dedicated dashboard. This not only improves communication, but also provides valuable and structured data for the whole project portfolio. And high quality, structured data is one of the biggest assets companies can collect.

The industry has seen increased demand for real-time connected data in recent years. What are the top ways you’re seeing businesses use and benefit from connected data?

Mateusz: While the AEC industry has been slower to adopt new technologies that deliver real-time data, industries such as manufacturing and logistics have long benefitted from the insights connected data delivers. The current challenge is encouraging more widespread adoption of cloud platforms in the AEC space in order to address industry-specific needs.

The implementation of a cloud environment is the easiest way for AEC firms to benefit from digital transformation and begin to experience the advantages of real-time connected data. These benefits, including streamlined workflows, automated processes, and increased efficiency, cannot be overstated. Plus, it’s easy for all project stakeholders to collaborate in one common environment just by entering a website and logging in.

Aly: We’ve seen firms capitalize on connected data by creating advanced dashboards and workflows that enhance decision making and business processes. For example, by integrating processes such as estimating, planning, and procurement, businesses can forecast required resources ahead of time and check that these resources are available before the start of the planned activity. If the resources are not available, the procurement team is notified so they can take the necessary steps to procure the required resources in order to ensure a smooth construction process without delays.

Another area we’ve seen organisations benefit from is 5D BIM simulations. Having a 3D project model with cost and time built in helps to minimise delays and reduce issues with resource allocation or activity sequence before actually starting the work on site, helping firms build more efficiently and more sustainably. The simulation can also later be used to visually compare actual site progress versus planned progress.

Could you share some of the functionality that MTWO Construction Cloud delivers when it comes to BI dashboards, data analytic reports, and workflow design?

Aly: MTWO delivers a single source of truth, so workflows, dashboards, and reports can leverage data from all departments working on MTWO, allowing for accurate real-time reporting and forecasting. MTWO can generate reports that compare different estimates and provides a breakdown with the differences and provides options for triggering workflows, including scheduled, change of status, form-based, or manually triggered. Plus, Workflow Designer in conjunction with the MTWO API library allows for integration with 3rd party applications.

MTWO BI+ takes business intelligence to the next level. Its configurability allows users to get the information that matters most to them. For example, department heads can easily track day-to-day progress, while top level management can get a complete overall picture of project performance. This access to real-time data and insights enables teams to make more strategic decisions.

Mateusz: Real-time data is key to success in today’s rapidly changing business environment, so access to well-developed BI dashboards and data analytics are often a driving force in digital transformation implementations. MTWO Construction Cloud provides these services at the highest level, supported by the unique data architecture behind the solution.

One of the top benefits is the real-time connection between all project data. Everything from estimate line items to procurement packages and schedules to design documentation such as model objects and drawings, are connected and can be made accessible to all project stakeholders. This is a huge advantage of the MTWO platform and allows teams to have a complete picture throughout the project lifecycle, so they can plan more effectively and ultimately deliver projects on time, within budget, and more sustainably.