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Communication issues are one of the biggest obstacles to project success. When teams aren’t aligned, schedules slip, rework increases, and trust breaks down.

Touchplan Solves is a blog series that explores four of the most common communication challenges in construction and how project teams are solving them with Touchplan:

Miscommunication is one of the biggest threats to project success. When updates don’t reach the field, schedules fall out of sync, or stakeholders are left in the dark, the result is often rework, delays, and missed milestones.

This blog series explores four common communication challenges in construction and how Touchplan helps solve them:

1. Communication barriers
2. Disconnects between the master schedule and production planning
3. Stakeholder information gaps
4. Inconsistent tools and workflows across projects

In this first post, we’re diving into one of the most common issues on any jobsite: breakdowns in communication between project teams, trades, and field crews.

In fast-paced construction environments, even the smallest lapse in communication can result in costly delays. To understand how quickly things can go wrong, consider a scenario that plays out on jobsites far too often—where a critical update doesn’t reach the people who need it most.

The project team pushes back the slab pour, but the subcontractor doesn’t get the message.

During a weekly planning meeting, the project engineer flags a delay in underground inspections that requires pushing the concrete pour back by 48 hours. The superintendent agrees, and the update is entered into the master schedule using P6. Everyone at the meeting is aligned.

But the next morning, the concrete subcontractor, still working off a printed look-ahead plan from earlier in the week, arrives on-site. The crew stages equipment, sets up the pump truck, and prepares for the pour. The superintendent rushes in just in time to halt the work—but not before hours of labor and equipment setup have been wasted.

The plan changed, but the message didn’t get through. The breakdown wasn’t in scheduling—it was in communication. Without a system to keep the office and field aligned in real time, the gap between planning and execution becomes a costly problem.

The Communication Challenge in Construction

Why are communication lapses so common in construction? Many construction teams struggle with communication because their processes haven’t kept pace with the complexity of their projects. Consider the day-to-day reality:

• Design, preconstruction, scheduling, and field teams often work independently.
• Critical updates are lost between meetings or never make it to the jobsite in time.
• Project managers rely on incomplete data to make critical decisions.

When teams fail to communicate on the jobsite, the consequences are costly. Crews miss milestones, teams lose trust in each other, and in the worst-case scenario, they must tear out completed work and start over. This wastes time and money.

How Touchplan Improves Communication

Touchplan brings construction teams together through digital collaborative planning. The platform provides a shared space where everyone from project managers to trade partners can plan, coordinate, and adjust in real time. This reduces miscommunication and increases accountability.

Here’s how Touchplan helps prevent communication breakdowns in construction projects:

• Real-Time Updates: Team members can share and access live task progress from any device, keeping everyone aligned across the field and office.
• Variance Tracking: Teams can log reasons for delays and adjust plans to keep work moving forward.
• Centralized Planning: One platform replaces fragmented tools like emails and spreadsheets, uniting design, scheduling, and field teams.
• Visual Collaboration: Clear, shared views of weekly work plans and task progress help teams spot issues early and respond quickly.
• Real-Time Adjustments: As field conditions change, updates are reflected immediately so crews can plan accordingly.
• Shared Accountability: When superintendents, trade partners, and project managers work in the same system, everyone is accountable for their tasks and deadlines, leading to stronger execution.

Case in Point: Titan Electric

At Titan Electric, using Touchplan on complex projects helped improve coordination between the office and the field. Instead of chasing updates or relying on memory from planning meetings, teams using Touchplan worked from a live, shared plan where they could see task statuses and adjust in real time. Everyone from superintendents to trade foremen stayed aligned and ahead of schedule.

Communication across trades and phases improved significantly, leading to better plan reliability and fewer surprises.

According to Kyle Rothlin, Senior PM for Titan Electric: “As an electrical contractor, we literally touch every trade. Furniture, mechanical, framing, we interact with them all. Keeping our information in Touchplan makes it easier to stay aligned when you have that kind of reach across all the other subcontractors.”

Build Trust Through Transparency

When every team member, from schedulers to superintendents to trades, can access and update the latest plan, teams gain clear visibility into what is happening and what comes next. Touchplan turns fragmented communication into a connected, collaborative planning environment that keeps everyone aligned with the visibility to make timely decisions and adjust to changes. With everyone working from the same real-time plan, teams can reduce delays, avoid rework, and deliver projects with greater precision.

Ready to Improve Communication Across Your Project?

Touchplan helps construction teams stay connected and accountable from preconstruction through closeout. Contact us today to discover how Touchplan helps teams build faster, smarter, and with greater confidence.

Touchplan now offers a new way for teams to understand and improve performance across every level of a project. The Role Insights Dashboard is officially live, giving construction teams greater visibility into how each role impacts planning and execution.

Developed in response to direct customer feedback, the dashboard equips project leaders with the data they need to identify trends and strengthen accountability across the jobsite. By making performance more transparent and measurable at the role level, it enables more informed conversations, quicker decisions, and better project outcomes.

A New Layer of Insight for Competitive, Collaborative Teams

Project teams perform at their best when individuals understand their roles and take ownership of their responsibilities. The Role Insights Dashboard supports this by providing a centralized view of key performance metrics organized by role, enabling teams to:

• Monitor planning reliability across task, milestone, and constraint commitments
• Compare trends across different roles and time periods
• Promote healthy competition and recognize strong contributors
• Identify where additional support or coordination may be needed

This new dashboard empowers field leaders, trade partners, and project managers to work more collaboratively, using real-time performance data to guide smarter planning and more predictable project delivery.

What the Role Insights Dashboard Offers

Available to both Admin and Basic Users, the dashboard brings together a robust set of metrics designed to measure performance, responsiveness, and planning accuracy by role.

Key features include:

• Task, Milestone, and Constraint PPC: Measures the percentage of planned commitments completed on time
• Start Date and Lookahead Accuracy: Tracks how reliably teams start work as scheduled and maintain forecasts
• Constraint Response and Lead Times: Evaluates how quickly constraints are resolved and how early they are identified
• Performance Index: A composite score that reflects overall reliability and execution across PPC, status updates, and constraint performance
• Collaboration Score: A gamified leaderboard ranking roles based on timely task completion and engagement in planning

How to Access the Dashboard

Getting started is simple:

1. Open your project in Touchplan
2. Click Additional Dashboards at the top of the Project Insights Dashboard
3. Select Role Insights from the list

No setup is required. The dashboard automatically displays available role-based metrics from your project data.

Built to Evolve with Your Projects

The Role Insights Dashboard is the latest example of MSI’s commitment to supporting construction teams with flexible, user-friendly solutions that evolve alongside project needs. MSI continues to develop features that reflect the realities of fieldwork, delivering solutions for teams that prioritize transparency, collaboration, and measurable progress.

Looking to Improve Planning and Accountability on Your Jobsite?

Contact us to schedule a walkthrough and see how Role Insights can help your team perform at its best.

TL; DR 

For decades, large-scale construction has relied on phased planning and Critical Path Method (CPM) scheduling to drive project timelines. While CPM revolutionized construction planning in the 1960s, it remained a top-down, rigid system that struggled to adapt to the real-world complexities of daily site operations. The advent of Lean construction and the Last Planner System® (LPS) introduced a more flexible, bottom-up approach, yet for years, it remained largely manual. Now, with the rise of digital Lean planning systems, the industry is entering a new era—one where real-time collaboration, enhanced efficiency, and synchronized planning can unlock unprecedented value for commercial real estate developers. This shift is particularly transformative for phased revenue construction (PRC) projects – data centers, office and apartment towers, condo complexes, office campuses, resorts, hospitals and others. In all cases, strategic synchronization between CPM and LPS can result in faster revenue recognition, better lending terms, and lower risk for construction Owners. 

In the beginning, there was the Critical Path Method 

In legacy construction as it has been practiced for decades, “phased construction” is a common term, closely associated with Critical Path Method (CPM) planning. Back in 1963, CPM was a big new idea worthy of a Harvard Business Review tutorial titled The ABCs of the Critical Path Method which described CPM projects this way: 

(1) The project consists of a well-defined collection of jobs (or activities) which, when completed, mark the end of the project. 

(2) The jobs may be started and stopped independently of each other, within a given sequence. (This requirement eliminates continuous-flow process activities, such as oil refining, where “jobs” or operations necessarily follow one after another with essentially no slack.) 

(3) The jobs are ordered—that is, they must be performed in technological sequence. (For example, the foundation of a house must be constructed before the walls are erected.) 

CPM systematized construction, historically a largely artisanal process. But in 1963, with only about 1000 computers in the entire world, CPM planning was done with chalkboards, index cards, blueprints, and ledger books. And, given the very low information density of such media, the ordered project phases were coarsely defined and unable to easily account for critical intra-phase tasks and processes.  

For example, the phase definition for installing a concrete foundation might not have detailed the carpentry tasks for constructing the forms or the metal craft for shaping, tying, and welding the rebar preceding the cement truck’s arrival. Those things were separately, manually accounted for and managed by ground personnel. 

CPM for the masses 

Two decades later, 1983 saw the introduction of the IBM PC and the founding of Primavera Software, a dual revolution that brought CPM planning to the desktop and to many more construction companies. Primavera P3 made CPM cheaper, but it didn’t really make it deeper. It digitized the myriad elements of the CPM plans as they were, leaving those intra-phase tasks that resist advance planning in a blind spot that would last for two more decades. 

At its core, a CPM plan is a top-down, command and control, calculation-driven “push plan” that proceeds in a linear, non-iterative fashion to define and schedule the stages in a project’s lifespan, sort of like an actuarial project life table ending at occupancy. Almost by definition, it has no natural place for the ad hoc sequencing and iterative decision-making happening daily in the construction trailer. And so it was that, as desktop CPM spread throughout the construction world, on-site production planning would remain unsystematized for another decade until the advent of Lean construction. 

Let there be Lean 

About 10 years after the birth of Primavera, researchers Ballard and Howell introduced the Last Planner System. Derived from the Lean manufacturing principles implemented by Toyota after WWII, the Last Planner System (LPS) is a bottom-up, collaborative, iterative production planning regimen, that includes what is called pull planning. It works backwards from task completion dates committed to by the people doing the work on the ground. 

The decade that followed saw increasing adoption of Lean construction planning, and 2003 brought the addition of phase planning to the Last Planner System. Unlike the coarse predefined, sequential phases of CPM, LPS phases and the fine-grained tasks within them could be defined, managed, and executed in an efficient, flexible way as the project progresses. But, while it was systematic, it wasn’t very automatic. Sticky notes, spreadsheets, and word processing were used to capture, analyze, and share process and task information, and the dynamic planning process itself was largely procedural and manual, and would remain so for more than another decade. 

Lean goes electric 

Finally, in the decade until now, Lean construction planning software platforms like Touchplan® and others have taken the Last Planner System the last digital mile, enabling cloud-based, on-site, bottom-up, collaborative digital production planning that can dramatically improve the contractor’s ROI by improving worker productivity and preventing waste and rework. 

And when Lean planning software like Touchplan is used in conjunction with CPM software like Primavera P6 and Microsoft Project, it is now possible to synchronize the push and pull plans and improve the timeliness and accuracy of the traditional, broad construction phases of site prep, foundation, shell, fit-out, etc., all to the mutual benefit of the project’s general contractor and Owner alike. 

A case in point 

A notable new addition to the Salt Lake City skyline, the 40-story Astra apartment tower is now Utah’s tallest building. General contractor, Jacobsen Construction, a premier Utah builder, was initially scheduled to complete the first 10 floors to be available for renters by August 2024. But the project Owner then challenged the Jacobsen team to deliver 20 floors by the same deadline. Using the digital Lean Touchplan platform, they were able to easily adjust their plans to meet the new requirements, doubling the Owner’s revenue in one quarter of the time allowed by the master schedule. 

Layne Hess, Corporate Director of Planning and Scheduling at Jacobsen describes that stunning accomplishment this way:  

“When the client asked in March if we could deliver 20 floors instead of 10, we went back into Touchplan to figure out what adjustments could be made to meet the request and re-tooled ourselves,” said Hess. “By collaboratively working with the superintendents to re-work our plans on a platform that’s flexible and easy to use, we’re now turning over 20 floors in August instead of 10.”  

“I have the people in the field tell me the story of what’s really going on and I’ve got to have the real-time information from Touchplan to do that. When I get notifications from the daily plan that changes have occurred that are out of our control, I interpolate that into fragments in the P6 and get contractual entitlement for the dates moving out.” 

“Touchplan gave us the ability to break the details of the schedule into phases and see how these details inter-relate, an especially powerful capability. For example, in order to turn over 20 floors, we have to have some things done all the way to level 41 that inter-relate for Startup, Balancing and Commissioning, and life safety. We were able to identify this through several collaborative meetings with all stakeholders involved. And there were challenges: manpower, programming of systems, material deliveries, design, City requirements and so forth. 

“More had to be done in the first phase than the last phase. Now because we did more in the first phase the second phase had fewer requirements for completion.” 

Owners with benefits 

Among the many benefits Touchplan offers to all Owners, perhaps the most powerful is how it can dramatically improve their return on investment in projects like the Astra Tower, through what we call phased revenue construction (PRC).  In these projects where it is possible and intended for the Owner to realize revenue as the project progresses, rather than after it ends. This is a multi-billion-dollar segment that includes these types of construction: 

• Data centers  

• Multi-tenant office towers and campuses  

• Condo and apartment complexes and towers  

• Single-family housing developments 

• Mixed use and retail 

• Resorts and hotels  

• Hospitals and healthcare facilities  

A PRC project comprises the sequential construction of a series of independently functional units; they are effectively projects within a project. Each phase includes many of the elements of more monolithic construction projects, i.e., site prep, foundation, structure, shell, HVAC, etc., but at a smaller, more manageable scale.  If each segment is completed and occupied without disrupting or being affected by the ongoing construction, the project owner gains three key benefits: 

• Accelerated revenue 

• Better lending terms 

• Lower project risks 

However, PRC projects present requirements that traditional CPM scheduling and planning struggles to meet that Touchplan is designed to address. 

• Detailed, real-time task visibility 

• Seamless coordination of specialty trades 

• Accountability of promised work 

• Comprehensive phase-level reporting and analytics 

Also, Touchplan implements the earlier-described push-pull synchronization between the CPM-driven contract schedule and the LPS-driven pull plan enables the Owner to use phase completion data to make faster, better decisions for overall project strategy, negotiations, financing, and marketing. 

In Closing 

The evolution of construction planning—from the establishment of CPM’s structured, but rigid push planning to the addition of real-time digital Lean pull planning—gives PRC Owners a powerful new tool set for maximizing project efficiency and financial returns. By combining Touchplan’s pull planning with P6’s traditional CPM push planning, project teams can finally bridge the gap between the contract schedule and the on-the-ground execution plan.  

Nowhere is this more impactful than in phased revenue construction, where strategic synchronization of planning methodologies enables Owners to generate revenue earlier, secure better financing, and reduce project risks. In today’s competitive construction landscape, the ability to align long-term scheduling with dynamic, real-time execution isn’t just an advantage—it’s a necessity for staying ahead. 

Indeed, nowhere is this more evident than in the high-stakes PRC domain of data center construction, where billion-dollar projects are now completed in less than two years and even small delays in phase completion can cost millions of dollars in lost rental revenue. This is why Touchplan is used on projects for six of the top ten data center Owners in the world and has played a pivotal role on more than 275 data centers in just the last few years.  

And Owners for all kinds of phased revenue construction projects can gain significant financial and competitive advantages by assuring the adoption of the Touchplan digital Lean production planning platform in all their future projects. 

Transforming Construction Collaboration with Digital Collaborative Planning

For construction professionals, effective collaboration has always been a challenge. Traditional methods—sticky notes plastered on trailer walls, cluttered whiteboards, and lengthy in-person meetings—often lead to inefficiencies, lost information, and miscommunication.

Touchplan® is changing that. By bridging the generational gap and modernizing knowledge transfer, digital construction planning solutions are revolutionizing how teams work together. Moving from outdated manual systems to a centralized digital platform improves efficiency, strengthens teamwork, and fosters a true culture of collaboration.

To dive deeper into how digital collaborative solutions are transforming the industry, we spoke with Layne Hess, Corporate Director of Planning and Scheduling at Jacobsen Construction, and Sean Perry, Account Operations Manager at FLUOR Plant and Facility Services. They shared how Touchplan is improving construction collaboration while making project execution more efficient.

From Sticky Notes to Simplified Collaboration

Before adopting Touchplan, construction teams worked together, but their methods lacked efficiency. Hess recalls a time when job sites relied heavily on physical planning tools like trailer walls covered in sticky notes. “We had collaboration, but it wasn’t effective,” Hess explained. “We had 30-foot-long rooms with sticky notes on them, and somebody would open the door on a windy day, and they’d blow away.”

Realizing the inefficiencies of these outdated processes, Hess initially tried to build his own digital planning system. However, after attending a construction conference, he discovered Touchplan—a solution that could transform how teams coordinate work.

Perry also remembers a time when collaboration meant rooms packed with whiteboards and crowded meetings. “We can show you pictures of rooms covered wall-to-wall with whiteboards, filled with people,” Perry recalled.

While these meetings were essential, they had a major flaw. If a key stakeholder was absent, progress stalled. Important decisions got delayed, and teams struggled to stay aligned.

Touchplan changed this dynamic. Instead of relying on static, location-based meetings, teams could now collaborate in real time from anywhere. Whether on-site or remote, everyone could contribute and stay up to date.

More Than Just Efficiency—A Cultural Shift

Beyond saving time and improving coordination, Touchplan has redefined how teams communicate and work together.

Traditionally, construction followed a top-down hierarchy, where information flowed from experienced professionals to junior team members. With Touchplan, knowledge is now shared more openly, creating an environment where both younger and senior professionals can learn from each other.

This shift has led to a more inclusive and engaged workforce. Instead of isolated trade groups working independently, teams now collaborate across disciplines, breaking down silos that once existed.

Perry has noticed this change firsthand, especially in lunchrooms at job sites. “Before Touchplan, trade groups sat separately. Now, you see them engaging in open discussions, relationship-building, problem-solving across disciplines.”

These casual interactions may seem small, but they have a big impact—strengthening collaboration beyond scheduled meetings and fostering better teamwork.

Less Chaos, More Productivity

One of the most significant benefits of Touchplan is the reduction of workplace chaos. Instead of reacting to problems as they arise, teams can now plan proactively, leading to a smoother, more structured workflow.

Perry recalls a client asking, “How do you quantify removing chaos from the environment?” While metrics like cost savings and schedule efficiency provide measurable outcomes, the true impact is often felt in the work atmosphere.

Before Touchplan, job sites were disorganized, stressful, and reactive. Now, teams feel more in control, and projects run with fewer surprises.

“A lot of the feedback I get when I visit job sites is that the quality of life for a foreman, the quality of life for a General Superintendent is improving,” Perry shared.

Workers have personally thanked Perry and his team, expressing how Touchplan has reduced stress and improved their day-to-day experience. “They shake our hand and say, ‘Thank you for providing these systems that remove the chaos that used to eat at our professional lives.’”

This impact extends beyond the workplace, improving overall well-being and work-life balance.

A More Connected and Happier Workforce

Touchplan is more than just a digital planning solution—it’s a culture shift. By replacing outdated methods with a collaborative, structured approach, it’s helping construction teams:

• Improve efficiency with real-time collaboration
• Break down barriers between trade groups and experience levels
• Reduce stress by creating a more organized work environment
• Strengthen teamwork through open communication

As the construction industry continues to evolve, effective collaboration will help define success. Touchplan is leading the way, helping teams build a stronger, more connected workforce that’s ready to tackle modern construction challenges.

Ready to transform your team’s collaboration?

See how Touchplan can simplify your workflows and improve project efficiency. Contact us today to take the first step toward a more connected and productive workplace.

MSI’s partnership with Doxel is transforming how construction teams plan, track, and deliver projects. By combining Touchplan’s short-term planning with Doxel’s automated progress tracking, teams are experiencing improvements in efficiency, predictability, and profitability.

Real-World Benefits of Using Touchplan and Doxel Together

Teams leveraging Touchplan and Doxel report measurable improvements in execution, coordination, and project controls. Here’s how:

• Greater visibility into project performance – Real-time tracking ensures schedules align with actual site conditions.
• Proactive risk management – Teams can spot schedule gaps early and adjust before delays escalate.
• Efficient coordination – With up-to-date insights, stakeholders can collaborate more effectively and streamline execution.

Closing the Gap Between Planning and Execution

One of the biggest challenges in construction is ensuring that what’s planned matches what’s happening on-site. By using Touchplan for short-term scheduling and Doxel for automated progress validation, teams create a continuous feedback loop that strengthens execution and prevents schedule slippage.

By using Touchplan and Doxel together, teams can:

• Capture real-time data to validate progress.
• Detect discrepancies between planned and actual work before they impact timelines.
• Adjust execution strategies in response to real-world conditions.

Driving Smarter Decision-Making

With Doxel’s data visualization and Touchplan’s structured planning, teams can bring real-time progress insights into planning meetings, allowing for more informed decision-making and better execution strategies. By combining Touchplan’s collaborative planning solutions with Doxel’s automated progress tracking, teams ensure that schedules remain accurate, achievable, and aligned with actual site conditions. This dynamic approach enables teams to plan with greater confidence, proactively addressing risks and optimizing workflow efficiency.

Best Practices for Maximizing Touchplan & Doxel Together

To get the most out of Touchplan and Doxel, successful teams:

• Establish clear workflows early to ensure consistency across the project.
• Align tracking data with project schedules for real-time accuracy.
• Integrate both solutions from project initiation to prevent misalignment later in the process.

The Future of Construction

As projects grow larger and more complex, construction teams are looking for smarter, data-driven solutions to improve efficiency, visibility, and risk management. Industry leaders predict that automating earned value management, integrating real-time tracking with master scheduling, and expanding AI-driven progress verification will soon become standard.

Learn More About Touchplan and Doxel

By combining Touchplan’s collaborative planning with Doxel’s AI-driven tracking, teams gain the clarity and control needed to deliver projects with confidence. Learn more about how these solutions are helping teams stay ahead of industry demands.