Why Documentation needs to be Priority in Every Construction Project
These questions are asked everyday in the construction industry outlining an underlying issue within the construction industry, lack of digitalization. As I discussed in a previous post, Construction and Technology: An Unlikely Duo, the construction industry is the second least digitized industry in the United States falling only behind hunting / agriculture. It's all too common to see project managers and superintendents putting too little emphasis on proper documentation in favor of maintaining schedule. Even if the project manager has the best intentions, or makes the correct decision, the undocumented change or modification will be just that, undocumented, and opens pandoras box for change order rejection and General Contractor liability in the future.
Liability has always been present in construction; or any other service, manufacturing, or goods industry. As information technology has become more present in our lives so has liability risk. Before the age of email and text, construction relied heavily on in-person communication such as meetings and phone calls. Whether it was efficient or not the liability risk was reduced for a General Contractor as they held the expertise card and more emphasis was placed on trust. As other industries adopted technology and began digitalizing everything the construction had industry remained stagnant. Keep in mind construction interacts with many far more digitalized industries including: banking, legal, engineering, and others. The disparity in digitalization alone leaves the construction industry exposed and prevents a clean, documented, way to make a case.
Let's look at a common construction situation: A sub-contractor informs the general contractor a change order will be needed for additional steel to stiffen decorative shelving due to an incorrect plan detail. This change order sounds very straight forward, and it should be, but all too often the general contractor is left footing the bill. Why? Lack of documentation.
Lets break out the common failures here:
- Once a deficiency is identified by the sub-contractor, the general contractor failed to create an RFI (Request for Information) addressed directly to the responsible designer preventing them from accepting or refuting the sub-contractors claim.
- The sub-contractor performs the change order work without ownership approval because the general contractor failed to send an email or other documented request.
- The change order or design modifications are not distributed to other sub-contractors involved on the project, causing confusion, delays, and potentially un-needed change orders.
- The change order work performed by the sub-contractor conflicts future work or fails to meet ownership / designer expectations; causing additional future re-work and change orders.
- Delays caused by the change order lead time or re-work are not documented creating animosity between projects members.
All of the above common failures can still happen, even with verbal communication. In each case above all project members may have been informed via a phone call or in-person meeting. Sadly, if there is no document trail, digital or physical, the other far more digitalized players have the advantage and can prove they have "never" received notification of the change order. It becomes a he-said-she-said battle. Even if the general contractor did everything "right" and communicated with everyone, if the documentation doesn't exist the general contract will lose this battle when it surfaces in court.
Risks can be reduced dramatically by adopting a standardized methodology for communication and creating a repeatable process internally for each project. Adopting an online collaborative Project Management service, like ProCore or an AutoDesk service; RFI's can be tracked and distributed automatically to all applicable parties. These services offer a centralized place to keep all other documents that are often the source of future courtroom debate like plans, submittals, transmittals, etc. Reports can be complied to show when each party received documents or questions which increases the likelihood for transparency and more efficient communication.
In conclusion, we need to make it a priority to modernize the way construction communicates and take advantage of the upcoming wave of technology that will make opacity within construction communication a thing of the past. As highlighted by McKinsey and Company, just a marginal increase in technology adoption will bring a tremendous amount of value to the industry. It is time we move construction up the digitalization ladder.
What communication struggles do you deal with on your project?
Leave your comments below!
Sean McFadden
Principal
BlandHaus
sean@blandhaus.com
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