TECHNOLOGY TRENDS IN CONSTRUCTION
Technology Doesn’t Fail on Construction Sites – Adoption Does
By Yves Frinault Technology is a tool. Just like a ham-
mer is a tool. It was designed with a spe- cific purpose in mind. Few tools fail on site because they can’t deliver on their origi- nal purpose (for example, planting nails straight). Most fail because they don’t end up being used. Here is why. First, stop for a second and think about
the key tools that have ruled collaboration on construction sites for the last 10 years. I think most people would agree on a pretty short list: Paper and whiteboards Email Excel spreadsheets Phones, 2-way radios, etc. (more recently) iPhone, iPad, Android Those are tools that have snuck into our
daily routines. Creating something that users will use 5, 10 or 15 times a day is in- credibly hard, which explains why this list is so short. Here is the magic formula to get into people’s daily routine:
Success = Quick to setup + Easy to use + Flexible + Reliable + Adds value Quick
setup:
Setting up a new project quickly is about return on in- vestment. In con- struction,
each
project is a “new beginning.”
cost is always a key element in the deci- sion to bring on a technology. Custom setups used to span
Setup
weeks or months and require external consultants or even costly infrastructure. Now you can deploy top-of-the-line SaaS products in minutes. Easy to use: Successful adoption
hinges on how little users need to learn be- fore they derive value from a technology. Or put more simply, how hard it will be to convince them individually to use the tool. You just can’t afford to formally train every new user in your company. Good tools usually don’t require formal training. Who taught you how to use your smart- phone? Flexible: As you previously saw, four
or maybe five tools total have made it into our daily site routine and they are all char- acterized by their extreme flexibility. On site, we don’t get to pick the weather, the changing conditions, or the problems we encounter. However, we get to choose the tools we bring with us, and those are the ones that adapt to the way we do our job. Reliable: When was the last time that
you lost an email during transfer? When was the last time that Excel made a calcula- tion error on quantity takeoff? That 100% reliability is expected. So, forget the feature
set for a second, because on site, winning
prod-
ucts are above all the ones that you can really rely on. Adds value:
Yves Frinault
People will use something 15 times a day if it adds value or saves them time 15 times a day. You don’t get people into daily routines by forcing them to fill forms that are only used to create a dashboard for a project manager. Foremen and supers on site are all about getting things done in the next hour, so if you want to win them over, you have to add value to them in that hour. Anyone, from the foreman to the VDC
manager, who wants to adopt a new tool or construction app successfully should run this framework in his head; then wait six months and get promoted.
Yves Frinault is the founder and CEO of
Fieldwire, a task management platform de- signed to help construction foremen, supers, and engineers in the field.
A screenshot of the Fieldwire platform. 18 September/October 2015 California Constructor
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