This case study is inspired by conversations with Directors of Innovation across construction and architecture companies.

The Challenge

The construction industry is known for its tried and tested construction practices that enable established architecture firms to build trust with clients. The business model favours consistency and stability. Companies that are able to deliver projects on time and below budget, while keeping quality in focus, are able to take advantage of lucrative margins.

Building costs keep rising with the increase in the price of lumber and steel and other raw materials. These increases are eating away at margins and nudging architecture firms to look for ways to improve profitability and leverage existing client builds.

It is against this backdrop, the Director of Innovation was building out this function to gain a market advantage. The company had set up ‘Shark Tank” like competitions to crowdsource innovative ideas from the field. These events occurred at a regular cadence and the winning ideas and their authors were rewarded and acknowledged. However, the compiling of a database of great ideas that were never adopted by the construction teams was limited in its benefit to support commercial outcomes and help deliver a unique differentiating advantage.

The Resilience Factor Difference  

Embedding with the Director of Innovation, revealed an established organizational structure that favoured a siloed and tested approach that created differentiated lines of reporting between the innovation and construction functions.

The construction team rewarded consistency and leaning into established practices that guaranteed certain quality levels. The Innovation function was solving for the introduction of new tools, such as the use of pre-fabrication and lasers to help bring down delivery times. Both teams were being rewarded for different outcomes. One was solving for consistency and the other one for innovation.

 RF worked closely with the Director of Innovation to approach key regional leads with P&L responsibilities to pinpoint their main areas of friction and to help identify possible patterns. Additional conversations with key decision makers pointed to pockets of resistance inside the construction teams and their assumption that new tools would undermine the quality of the finished products.

Additional contextualized negotiations revealed an opportunity for the Director to spend time with the construction teams to run a pilot to better address the realities on the ground. Working with regional directors was the ‘leverage point’ needed to create a full time role that permanently embedded the innovation function within the construction team.

This allowed both teams to create feedback loops that ensured that new innovations could be put into motion to support the commercial objectives of the company while maintaining quality standards.

The reframe focused on ensuring that any innovation proposals were not abstracted and would actually be used by the construction teams and without compromising on the quality of work they were used to, while at the same delivering on budget and ahead of schedule.