From helping alleviate labor shortages, to creating a proof of site status, to improving productivity, technology can have a positive impact on construction companies. Many builders are taking notice: in a survey OpenSpace conducted among customers at the end of last year, 88% of respondents said that people who already used tech on their projects were increasing that usage, and 91% said colleagues who were previously tech-agnostic were beginning to embrace it.

But simply signing on the dotted line to purchase a new technology isn’t a guarantee that your firm will receive the full benefits from it. While many companies are transforming their use of technology, about 50% of them report that they’re still in the pilot phase. Here are a few best practices to keep in mind when implementing new technologies at your company.

Know your problem

Technology isn’t a magical cure-all—it can help solve real problems on jobsites, but only if you match the right solution for your particular challenge. The first step to successfully adopting a technology and rolling it out organization-wide is knowing your organization's specific pain points, which will help you determine goals and choose the right solution for you. Without this clear picture in mind, organizations can end up adopting technologies that don’t actually work for their given problems, leading to frustration and a lack of further innovation.

Have a plan

In construction, it’s crucial to have a plan of attack, with clear responsibilities, roles and timelines. This same principle applies to piloting and rolling out technology, as well. Who will be responsible for onboarding and training? What is the timeline for the rollout, what are the milestones and who will be in charge of keeping everyone on track? What are the standard operating procedures?

Once a plan is in place, it’s not simply “set it and forget it”—someone should be responsible for ensuring that everyone is owning their areas of responsibility and for proactively making adjustments to the process where needed.

Ask the right questions

The complexity of the technology you’re working with will determine how quickly you can expect to see a return on value. To set a realistic timeline for adoption, ask questions about the onboarding process and ease of use when you’re evaluating different solutions.

It’s also important to ask questions about what the customer success support will look like after you purchase a new technology in order to manage expectations and anticipate how much help you’ll receive with the onboarding and rollout process.

Get executive buy-in

When implementing a new technology, having executive buy-in and support is crucial to the success of adoption. We’ve seen that when executives set an expectation that employees will use the technology on a regular basis, the chances that the technology will expand company-wide are much greater.

Fortunately, according to data from OpenSpace’s customer survey late last year, it seems that executive support of construction technologies is strong. 85% of respondents said that company management is encouraging the use of tech on the jobsite. More than just providing passive support, active encouragement to use tech from a management team can take the form of company-wide communications, key KPIs for individual teams and regular reminders of benefits the company expects from tech adoption onsite.

Invest in onboarding

When adopting a new technology, sometimes you’re replacing a process that has been established for years. To implement the change successfully and get the organization on board, identifying one or two champions, along with an executive sponsor, will help with the training process, alignment and easing everyone into the full rollout. For example, if you have projects in five regions, you can pick one champion for each region, have them attend in-depth onboarding and then take their learnings back to others. Identifying champions early on will allow you to get their buy-in and can make the process of rolling out a new tech to a full organization much smoother.

Enjoy the benefits

Time-to-value, or the time it takes to find value in a new technology, is a crucial part of whether your adoption will be successful or not. By knowing pain points and asking the right questions, having a clear implementation plan and identifying champions, you can greatly increase your chances of a successful rollout of a new technology.