Report from Construction Summit 2003 — Day One
March 9th, 2003 by HalConstruction Summit 2003 has begun. It's been raining here in Jacksonville, FL. (Read: no golf…yet.)
The program today was dominated by four sessions on using the internet for managing construction projects. The presentations were basic. Here's the presenters' best advice:
- Use COTS (commercial off-the-self) applications. Construction firms are not software developers. Let the experts do what they do best.
- Implement systems with an eye towards the specialty contractors. They represent 1/2 of all the players yet only 25% of them use email regularly in their business.
- This industry is driven by risk. The usual practice is risk shifting rather than risk sharing.
- Implement systems for business results. Digital technology will lead to reductions in cycle time and costs. Sharing data is the principal source of these improvements.
The presenters were unusually supportive of web-based solutions. While talking extensively of shared data they neglected to speak about how the data would be used or the day-to-day practical issues of project coordination and bottoms-up planning.
Monday's agenda is more exciting: two presentations on the Big Dig, designing terror-resistant structures, and lean construction. Stay tuned.
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March 11th, 2003 at 10:47 pm
Hi Hal,
guess you heard the usual at this summit. I found a little link about a good wrap-up on agile PM. Although it is about SW projects, I don’t see why most of the elements presented there would not find a useful echo in the lean-to-be construction arena. Hope this compensates a bit for some of the platitudes that were served to you. Here it is : http://www.ccpace.com/Resources/AgileProjectManagement.pdf
See You !