Describes how to use social collaboration solutions such as IBM Connections to create a new breed of Construction project.

1. Social Construction Projects
Alan Hamilton
Social Business Value & Adoption Consultant
Worldwide Collaboration Solutions Team © 2013 IBM Corporation

2. Client
Quantity
M&E
Surveyor
Architect
Construction
Collaboration
Network
Project
Planning
Manager
Supervisor
Contractor
Building
Surveyor
Shadow
Design
Facilities Team
Manager
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3. Construction Projects These Days…
• Moved to virtually entirely electronic construction projects.
• Often the only paper is a site drawing.
• Litigation is still a major concern, especially in a recession.
• Project extranets e.g. BIW, 4Projects, etc commonplace but limited:
– Primarily a document exchange system.
– Don’t facilitate communication / collaboration.
– Not intended to make the job better.
• Continually increasing need to improve and differentiate.
• A successful project these days is not just on-time on-budget delivery.
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4. Basic Requirements to Manage a Construction Project.
• A place to store and manage controlled documents like drawings, specifications
and reports;
• A way of updating others on changes to files and other important information;
• A project directory so that everyone knows each other’s responsibilities;
• A management and workflow engine to provide a standard approach to managing
changes and which provides industry-standard templates to achieve these
changes;
• A way of managing revisions to documents and being able to back-track through
previous revisions;
• Security and auditability of all changes in the system;
• Mobile – be available wherever the user is on whatever device they have.
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5. What Does Social Do that Current Systems Do Not?
• Greatly reduce the irrelevant information by letting the end user choose what to be
alerted to (within limits).
• Provide tools to standardise processes and procedures according to contract
guidelines in a secure and auditable way.
• Provide cross-system tagging and discovery of information beyond just searching.
• Flattened reporting structure and and information updating.
• New models for handling information that doesn’t just rely on files.
• Identifying the people who are involved, not just the information.
• Focus on the individual not the process.
• Novel methods for updating the entire project or individual teams on progress.
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6. What is a Social Business?
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7. Comparison of Engagement vs Record
Engagement Social Record
Blog Use a blog as a system of record for individuals or Reports
organisations to report on the status of their work. Instantly
shared, single version of the truth.
Activities Use an activity to set up the agenda, collect papers, record Meetings
actions and track progress.
Wiki A wiki provides an ideal means of linking, revising and Procedures
auditing all types of site safety, management and other
procedures.
Files Any social collaboration system should provide versioning, Drawings
distribution, alerting, tagging and management of files.
Communities A social collaboration system provides the ideal way of Logical
bringing logical groups of users together, e.g. design team, groupings
sub-contractors, etc.
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8. 8 © 2013 IBM Corporation
2011

9. Social Collaboration for a single project
• Change Management is probably one of
the most complex but can easily be • Standard work procedures in place in the
standardised into the main workflows the project, such as health-and-safety details,
project needs based on common contractor inductions, etc would be placed
definitions agreed by the industry itself. in the Wiki.
• Drawings fits easily into the Files area. • The Site Diary, a record of what has
Uploads, downloads and all that good stuff happened on the site can easily be
are handled easily by Files. implemented using a Blog.
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10. Social Collaboration for Multiple (small) Projects
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11. Social Collaboration for Large or Multi-Phase Project
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12. Change Management Example
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13. Summary
• A Social Construction Project unites the team like no other current solution.
• It provides both a system of engagement and a system of record in a secure
manner.
• New models of usage, such as blogs, wikis, communities and activities address the
modern requirements without trying to replicate the old paper world.
• Social Collaboration reduces information overload in multiple ways without diluting
responibility, liability or control.
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14. alan.hamilton@uk.ibm.com
@alanghamilton
alanghamilton.com
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