Technology

Improve Construction Communication With Integrated Video Conferencing Software

Project management platforms with integrated video conferencing can track activities and communications.
By Prasoon Shrivastava
April 20, 2022
Topics
Technology

The construction industry has long faced a crisis of communication—a crisis thrown into sharper relief by a global lockdown that forced project teams to operate remotely. Too often, communication is warped as it passes from owners to project managers to contractors, ultimately leading to schedule delays and even financial losses. There are multitudes of communication tools available to help, such as Zoom, Google Docs and shared drives, but fragmenting information across so many different tools will only perpetuate the problem. For construction teams, there is no solution that compares to the value of project management platforms with fully integrated video conferencing.

By using project management platforms with integrated video conferencing, construction teams can track all activities and communications alongside records of project data, rather than pulling in other systems and tools to reference images, snags or financial details. Integrated video conferencing systems enable users to conclude meetings with a clear plan of action by issuing meeting minutes, assigning tasks and tracking all follow up in one central platform.

Planning

One of the most complex phases of a construction project lifecycle is before construction even begins. Throughout the planning process, multiple stakeholders are involved with sharing input and feedback about the design, site conditions, permits and more. With the proper software and conferencing system, engineers, contractors, architects, and site teams can all be granted secure access to schedule meetings, review insights and share feedback. In this way, every stakeholder has the opportunity to help refine the project strategy. Integrated communication tools enable project teams to build a truly connected construction ecosystem.

Integrated Task Management

With integrated meeting software, all tasks can be added and tracked directly in the system, avoiding disagreements or discrepancies that might accompany verbal agreements. Team members can create to-do lists, track progress, monitor jobs and allocate resources with ease. Furthermore, by using task handling features that are customized to the construction industry, teams can reduce the amount of reworking over the course of a project lifecycle. These specialized applications can centralize activity history and enable teams to review high-priority tasks and analyze points of failure. The combination of integrated video conferencing and other task management tools anticipates problems and ensures that a project moves forward, rather than requiring teams to consistently retrace their steps and resolve issues.

Risk Management

The construction and real estate business by nature involves a huge amount of risk, and the stakes are high. In fact, real estate is a key cause of larger economic collapse. It is crucial that construction professionals invest in collaboration platforms that centralize all project data into a common data environment, accessible by all stakeholders. With all data centralized in one platform, comprehensive audits can be carried out with ease, and identify solutions for budgeting errors, lack of resource availability, scheduling issues and more.

Integrated meeting software can provide meeting minute features that help team members to track discussions, and stakeholders to easily audit logs to identify relevant data. By increasing transparency across all parties, this feature greatly contributes to relationship building. In addition to meeting logs, meeting and collaboration tools allow team members to upload and track visual assets as well, which can be used as a point of reference by any team member and overall enhance visual progress reporting.

Remediation

Construction is a complicated business and even the best planning in the world cannot fully avoid conflicts and disputes. When these issues do arise, meeting and online collaboration software can facilitate discussions and help lead to quicker solutions. Fully integrated features such as chat logs, secured access points, and documentation reduce the need to draw upon multiple different tools and sources for information. Multiple team members can access the same record of information and share insights to quickly resolve problems.

True Connectivity in an Increasingly Remote World

Integrated conferencing tools in project management platforms are a great step towards unifying project teams on site and in the office, and in any location in the world. By enabling all meeting discussions and project records to be accessed and analyzed by all team members and stakeholders, integrated collaboration systems will maximize project quality, advance delivery times and increase profits for all involved.

by Prasoon Shrivastava
Prasoon Shrivastava is the Founder and CEO of Zepth, an intelligent and easy-to-use construction project management platform that ensures the delivery of projects on budget, schedule, and quality. Prasoon Shrivastava comes from a background immersed in the construction industry geared toward sustainability.

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