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:
- Communication barriers
- Disconnects between the master schedule and production planning
- Stakeholder information gaps
- 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.
