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Boyd, D and Gichuhi, F (2003) Studying site meetings in projects. In: Greenwood, D J (Ed.), Proceedings 19th Annual ARCOM Conference, 3-5 September 2003, Brighton, UK. Association of Researchers in Construction Management, Vol. 2, 533–42.

  • Type: Conference Proceedings
  • Keywords: communication; meetings; objectives; project management
  • ISBN/ISSN: 0 9534161 8 6
  • URL: http://www.arcom.ac.uk/-docs/proceedings/ar2003-533-542_Boyd_and_Gichuhi.pdf
  • Abstract:
    The necessity for good communications within the construction industry has long been acknowledged because of the complexity of its product and the fragmentation of its process. This has generated much research into seeking improvements. However, much of this research has focussed on: firstly, understanding the processes of design and construction, and secondly to changing these processes to a theoretical improved process model. The research reported here starts at a different place by accepting the current processes and inquiring into how they operate so that they can be improved. Of particular interest here is the ‘site meeting’, which are a universal activity in the industry and which has become automatic rather than instrumental. It was considered that ‘site meetings’ had become iconic and not just functional so that their role and value in communications and decision making was confused. The research involved a pilot study of a small number of case study meetings and also undertook a small number of interviews with industry personnel. The results demonstrate that site meetings perform many functions in projects many of which are non explicit. Clearly the role of site meetings in communications is still important, but, the non explicit areas need to be considered when trying to improve the operation of meetings.