Communication among stakeholders can be the difference between a project going as planned or completely failing. This makes effective project communications incredibly important.
By ensuring effective communication within a project team, everyone benefits. Frontline supervisors and their crew will be on the same page while having easy access to the information they need. Managers benefit from an increased ability to monitor project activities and analyze progress, while customers will be satisfied by projects staying on track and within budget.
Project teams on the same page
The most obvious benefit is that team members will all be on the same page. This is important for a number of reasons.
Through effective communication, crews will have what they need when they need to execute the work. For example, when communication is flowing smoothly, project managers will provide frontline leaders with their schedule, work expectations, safety hazards and mitigation needs, and other critical information. On the other hand, when there are communication breakdowns within the team, work is delayed, safety may be compromised, and unnecessary rework is often required.
Additionally, solid communication allows goals to be set and shared so the team is working together to complete each milestone, which directly contributes to improved productivity. When expectations are set at the beginning of a project and communicated to the team, tasks can be completed more effectively and efficiently.
Access to real-time reporting
When communication surrounding a project is transparent and effective, the project team has access to real-time progress updates. This is beneficial for ongoing review and reporting of the project and different pieces within it. Frontline leaders and project managers can monitor the schedule, for instance, and identify when (and why) they are falling behind. Without real-time updates, this information wouldn’t be known until it was too late, with no time to correct course.
Along the same lines, project teams are informed of critical impacts when they occur so they can quickly take action to mitigate or resolve issues that may result in delays. This leaves less room for errors or misinterpretation, resulting in less rework and fewer delays.
Management will also benefit from real-time reporting as they will receive more timely and accurate results, allowing them to monitor all ongoing projects in real-time, give clients regular updates, and spot issues even before the frontline leaders realize they are occurring.
Overall success is made easier
The benefits of implementing effective communication are immense. Not only can tasks move forward more efficiently when effective communication is achieved, but the overarching success of the project is also more attainable. From keeping a project on track and within budget to minimizing errors and rework, communicating clearly can drive better results.
Everyone involved will be more satisfied when the project runs more smoothly as a result of great communication. Customers, specifically, will be happier when they experience more accurate updates, fewer errors, reduced costs and the many other benefits of effective communication from their construction project team.
Poor communication is unfortunately common in construction. Learn why—and strategies to improve communication and transparency—in this free guide.
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