Boyd, D and Gichuhi, F (2003) Studying site meetings in projects. In: Greenwood, D J (ed.) Proceedings of 19th Annual ARCOM Conference, 3-5 September 2003, Brighton, UK.
Abstract
The necessity for good communications within the construction industry has long been acknowledged because of the complexity of its product and the fragmentation of its process. This has generated much research into seeking improvements. However, much of this research has focussed on: firstly, understanding the processes of design and construction, and secondly to changing these processes to a theoretical improved process model. The research reported here starts at a different place by accepting the current processes and inquiring into how they operate so that they can be improved. Of particular interest here is the 'site meeting', which are a universal activity in the industry and which has become automatic rather than instrumental. It was considered that 'site meetings' had become iconic and not just functional so that their role and value in communications and decision making was confused. The research involved a pilot study of a small number of case study meetings and also undertook a small number of interviews with industry personnel. The results demonstrate that site meetings perform many functions in projects many of which are non explicit. Clearly the role of site meetings in communications is still important, but, the non explicit areas need to be considered when trying to improve the operation of meetings.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | communication; meetings; objectives; project management |
| Index terms: | case study, interview, personnel, fragmentation, design and construction, decision-making, complexity, project management, construction industry |
| Subjects: | contractual arrangements, data collection methods, business, industry analysis, systems engineering, decision analysis, project management theory and practice, management |
| Topics: | Procurement, Risk Management, Project Management, Research Practice, Engineering Principles, Organizational Design, Human Resources |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCTE |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here