I am going to state the obvious, and say what you already know - we are living in a crisis. Every person has entered into or is preparing to enter into survival mode, from how they purchase groceries, to how they pay mortgage/rent and other bills, to how they simply live life. COVID-19 is a cloud that is not just hanging over our heads, it has completely engulfed us in its haze of uncertainty.
Out of a crisis MUST come a revolution. Fundamental changes in thinking will modify and improve the approach to how we design, document, and procure building projects. Parts of the revolution are already happening: team members are scattered but still communicating and getting work done, but the potential for improving transparency across teams is yet untapped. The sooner we recognize the opportunity that this crisis presents and learn how to rise above survival mode, the sooner a change in paradigm will take place.
Conspectus has been preparing for this revolution for years, as the invitation to "Join the Revolution" has resided at the bottom of our home page since 2016, now has moved to the top in response to present situations. The preparation shifted to implementation in 2019, when we deployed Conspectus Cloud on all of our projects. We developed Conspectus Cloud as a tool to implement Evolving Specifications. This is the Conspectus approach - our response to the industry's challenging and exhausting efforts to find the perfect fit for myriad delivery methods, and to provide unprecedented communication among project team members to deliver successful projects.
In a time of vastly increased uncertainty, how can owners control their consultant teams and validate their projects are proceeding according to their requirements? How can design teams work effectively with scattered team members and hampered communications? How can we, as an industry, rise above survival mode on our projects?
Conspectus has the solution: Make the process transparent. Strip away the layers between project team members, and engage specifications as the solution. Deploy Conspectus Cloud, which provides a highly collaborative and fully transparent platform to manage and track design decisions and produce project specifications. Establish your projects in Conspectus Cloud from their inception and experience the benefits immediately: input the owners' project requirements (OPR), then document design decisions in real time and validate them constantly against the OPR. Allow your teams working remotely to actively contribute, review, and comment on the specifications development. This applies to the ENTIRE team, every consultant, the owner, the contractor and, if you wish, even subcontractors and suppliers.
You can decide to start the revolution for yourself, your team, your project, your industry.
Tina Montone
