What can construction learn from Chicago Bulls?

I guess most people know who Michael Jordan is; one of - if not the - best basketball player of all time! He was already a fantastic individual player before he was drafted to the NBA. 

Chicago Bulls could have done the same thing as most of the teams were doing at that time: Making great individual players and trying to win the championship by relying on just a handful of people. 

However, that was not what Phil Jackson (the Chicago Bulls head coach) had in mind. He wanted to have a strong team where they weren’t relying on one person to achieve the championship! 

He wanted to develop a strong team so the team did not risk too much if MJ was injured or sick. Drawing on this team parallel in terms of construction projects; if key people get injured or succumb to stress, the project is in trouble! These key players will typically hold a lot of information not shared with the rest of the project participants.

The Chicago Bulls spent a lot of time building up a strong team around all of their individuals skillsets to orchestrate them in the best way possible and making sure everyone was aware of their strong and weak points so they could lift each other up. 

This resulted in what I believe was the strongest team in NBA history! 

So what can we learn from this? 

It is not only about the skills or tools we have as individuals but how we can draw on each individual's strength and combine them into a collective where we are all learning from each other and improving upon our knowledge and skills. As any team exercise would show, collective thinking and pulling on everyone’s strengths beats individualism every time. 

The construction industry is moving faster than ever but we are still extremely silo-based and this is hurting our collaboration and learning enormously. ConTech solutions have been on the market for years, however, something has been missing in the way we work with digital tools. 

We are afraid of transparency and mistrust is part of many of our daily work lives. This needs to change if we want to move forward! I know this has been said a ton of times before in our industry - transparency, accountability and data are the keys to great collaboration. 

We cannot keep navigating based on scattered and outdated data. It is extremely important to find ways to work closer together and start learning from each other! 

When I talk to people in the industry, I often hear of some project managers as heroes that can save every project. The difference between heroes and great project managers is often the way they work with process, people and tools. 

The heroes know that a solid process is needed, supported by tools to ease the tasks and capture the objectives and finally to make the people aware of how they should work and repeatedly focussed on following the process even when the pressure is high.   

It is all about having that transparency to keep each other aware of upcoming events to solve before it is going to be critical and can hurt the actual progress on the projects. 

To keep the risk on the projects under control at all times. 

Let me just make one thing clear: I DO NOT THINK ANYONE GOES TO WORK TRYING NOT TO DO A GREAT JOB! BUT…… often the great project manager has some good processes in place to make sure things do not spin out of control and knows that it demands a constant effort of making sure everything is aligned. Tools and processes do not provide any value without following the setup that is agreed upon. 

So what can we learn from that when buying software? 

If I look at all the people I have worked with over the years I have been in the industry, it is very clear to see what the difference is between great projects and less great projects. 

This might come as a surprise for you, knowing that I sell change management and digital tools on a daily basis :). 

Communication and complete overview of what is going on on a project is the #1 driver for successful project delivery! Being ahead of the ball at all times is the only way to manage a project well as there will always be “storms/fires” that need to be put out from time to time. 

These can be reduced by planning and communicating in a timely manner and using the knowledge from previous projects. These are very important parameters in order to reduce risk, increase earnings, foster a great work environment for everyone with fewer accidents and less stress than the industry norm.

Now back to the tools: Why focusing on software features will ultimately lead to failure. 

In the construction industry, there is a tendency to make massive spec lists/requirements for what we want the tools to be able to do. Often these requirements are centred around specific use cases BIM, QHSE, Docs & Drawings, Planning etc. 

I see a pattern, within that pattern, there seems to be an absence of a deeper understanding of the actual processes that need to be supported and why they need to be supported. In the end, construction companies buy tools to ease their daily work and to be able to deliver better projects with better revenue. 

When I dig deep and get into the nitty-gritty pain points of the customers I speak with about their requirements and features, what comes to light behind all the initial features a software must have is much more basic, though nonetheless more essential than any feature “how do we communicate and collaborate better than today”. 

Thus if we keep focussing solely on features and not on what brings us closer as a team; if we don’t have a strong focus on how we collect data and how we can establish collective knowledge instead of celebrating individual heroes in the company, we will keep relying on the “star” profiles instead of increasing the general skill level in our teams. 

We lack trust in each other and our collaboration, so instead of communication, we keep feeding each other more and more reports. This causes an efficiency drain because we have to use our time on administrative work. 

So what should we stop doing: 

• Stop using email as a collaboration tool as it is people dependent and you easily lose track of what is important 
• Stop arranging an endless stream of meetings to update each other (this is given if everyone works together in the same collaboration tool) 
• Stop using “dead” tools that are providing outdated information the second the info is sent out 
• Stop working with scattered information that only a few people, if not only 1 person, can access (it is like throwing all the eggs in one basket and hoping for the best) 
• Stop making reports manually, as these can be automated 
• Stop inventing the wheel every time you have a new project - look for learnings from previous projects
• Stop distrusting and being afraid of people not doing their jobs
• Stop talking about tools as the mechanism of change (start with your company and what you can do to change and collaborate better) 

So what should we start doing: 

• Map out your processes and understand why you have them (make sure everything we do has a greater value and purpose) 
• Find collaborative tools to connect the teams (construction-specific collaboration tools) 
• Understand your landscape of tools and system to start building them together (platform technologies) 
• Start automating reporting (BI dashboards)
• Start involving people more in what has to do with their daily work - this makes people feel more valued and makes them more responsible (I have not heard anyone say that they do not want information if they understand it can ease their job by knowing things in advance) 
• Start spending 80% on your time on being proactive instead of reactive (nobody likes to be the firefighter every day, it is just draining) 

AND THE MOST IMPORTANT THING

• Change is not something that happens overnight! It demands constant focus until it is a new habit that replaces the old way of working. However, the outcome is amazing! Focus 4 weeks ahead when creating new habits - it makes it much more achievable. 

Keep each other accountable and make everything transparent. By doing so you can help each other, as some might need more help than others. Focusing on transparency ensures you know e.g. if a colleague is stressed out and needs help, and receives help before it is too late.

I have been working with customers all around the world, and what I see as the main issue is not about finding tools to support stand-alone jobs, e.g. QHSE. There are plenty of tools that fit that purpose. 

The real underlying issue is about how to collaborate in the best way possible, and that is where the majority of the tools in the market fail to deliver. They are often built to support one or multiple processes and not necessarily to support the collaboration between the teams and even less willing to integrate or deliver data to the needs of the company buying the tools. 

So my best advice is:

1. Stop looking at tools and features, find out how to facilitate collaboration to keep everyone informed. Don’t just dump lots of data on everyone (by sending endless amounts of CC emails etc.) Instead, make sure people can easily find information if needed.  
2. Scope out the amount of reporting needed from top to bottom in the company. Map out the data sources and make sure reporting happens automatically without human interaction 
3. Think of software as platforms that need to be connected and start integrating these to support the processes that are already thought through.
4. Start harvesting knowledge through the vast amount of data that is collected on all your projects. There are some easy wins to be gained within a very short period of time just by understanding what data can do for you.
5. Take change management seriously and make sure it is supported from top to bottom. Change can only happen if we hold each other accountable and are pushing in the same direction

I hope this was worth the read! I would love to hear your opinion or if I have missed something as I am always open for learning and to have a chat about how you guys are working together! 

I know change can be difficult. It is a conservative industry, and there are multiple stakeholders that change from project to project. However, we all have one thing in common. We love our industry, and we are all here to create truly amazing projects, whether it is roads, bridges, commercial buildings, sculptures etc. I know for a fact that most people are proud when they walk by a project they have been involved in! So why not start to develop a better journey towards those finished projects with less stress and better collaboration. The outcome will also be a better bottom line :). 

Together we can change our industry! 

Best regards Nicholas