Communication in Construction Teams

Construction teams are usually very complex and temporal groupings of actors that rely on interdisciplinary interaction for the realization of project goals. The costs of delay and inefficiency associated with poor coordination and communication is a constant factor, and it is well recognized that the development and maintenance of effective communication within teams is crucial to successful project outcomes. However, published data regarding the manner in which individuals interact within the temporary project team is scarce. Managers and researchers have little other than anecdotal evidence on which to develop effective tools and methods to facilitate communication and hence improve the performance of the project team. Christopher Gorse and Stephen Emmitt provide a comprehensive overview of the literature on interpersonal communication and deliver a critical review of various research methods previously used in and outside the construction management field. This leads to a focus on Bales' interaction process analysis (IPA), a tool used successfully in many fields to collect interaction data. Bales' IPA is used here to investigate the link between successful projects and the effectiveness of communication by categorizing task-based and socio-emotional communication acts in a series of site-based construction progress meetings. This data is then compared with specific project performance criteria to see how communication affected project performance. The findings indicate that participants in the construction process exhibit regular patterns of interaction and, most significantly, that there are different patterns of interaction associated with successful and unsuccessfulprojects. Consequently a number of practical suggestions are put forward to assist all actors involved in construction projects. This insightful publication will be of interest to researchers and practitioners in the fields of building design and construction management.