Improving Construction Meeting Effectiveness: Trade-Offs between Reactive and Proactive Site-Level Planning Discussions
Publication: Journal of Management in Engineering
Volume 40, Issue 5
Abstract
Despite the adage “hope for the best, plan for the worst,” site-level proactive plans produced by construction planning meetings show planning for the best. Planning meetings comprise both proactive and reactive discussions. Although not all the information provided during meetings is useful, limited efforts have been made to measure the amount of useful information embedded in reactive versus proactive discussions. This research aims to determine the appropriate trade-offs between the number of reactive and proactive discussions at each site-planning level. By utilizing information theory and the Chow–Liu tree, the authors demonstrate to what extent and in what order meeting participants should address site-planning level reactivity and proactivity to obtain more useful information effectively through a case study. The results indicate that proactive planning discussions improve percent plan complete (PPC) 20% more than reactive ones in general. However, missing information due to not undertaking reactive planning could put PPC at greater risk (2% more) than proactive planning, implying high uncertainty at the lowest level of site planning. This research contributes to the body of knowledge by innovatively developing an information theory-based approach to quantify the uncertainty in proactive and reactive discussions for construction planning. Using the information theory approach, this research enables project managers to quantify the uncertainty in reactive and proactive planning discussions. By adjusting the framework and parameters, the approach can have general applications in planning meetings.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. Specific data include a summary of meeting minutes and codes for information theory analysis.
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Journal of Management in Engineering
Volume 40 • Issue 5 • September 2024
Copyright
© 2024 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Dec 11, 2023
Accepted: Mar 14, 2024
Published online: May 23, 2024
Published in print: Sep 1, 2024
Discussion open until: Oct 23, 2024
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Business management
- Case studies
- Construction engineering
- Construction management
- Construction sites
- Continuum mechanics
- Dynamics (solid mechanics)
- Ecosystems
- Engineering fundamentals
- Engineering mechanics
- Environmental engineering
- Information management
- Innovation
- Methodology (by type)
- Motion (dynamics)
- Practice and Profession
- Research methods (by type)
- Solid mechanics
- Trees
- Uncertainty principles
- Vegetation
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