Overview

This project conducted fundamental research to understand how team interactions across disciplines and organizations in complex engineering projects impact project outcomes by studying teams on large engineering projects. Engineering project performance depends on both the performance of individuals and the networks through which knowledge flows between team members. These networks impact information access and the ability of team members to coordinate as they work towards common goals. Establishing efficient knowledge transfer networks is a challenge in engineering project teams, but there is limited evidence about specific impacts of network structure and dynamics on project outcomes. This study aimed to advance understanding of how manipulating interactions across disciplinary boundaries in inter-organizational engineering project teams can improve individual, sub-group, and project performance.

To achieve the study aims, we collected project team data from two different Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) project teams, working on LEED-certifiable buildings, over two years. The study longitudinally and empirically captured project team communication interactions through various communication mediums such as emails, web-based platforms, project team meetings, and surveys; and mapped knowledge-sharing connections using social network analysis. We used archival and survey data to analyze team and project performance. Evaluating the communication data in light of iterative project phases and corresponding performance considering the type and needs of teams was the basis of intervention developments for the treatment team. The study facilitated in-person presentations and feedback sessions with team members in the treatment case to evaluate outcomes.

 Outcomes:

Project data driven network visualizations (sociograms), taking organizational and communication networks into account as well as unique project phases, showed to be a valuable tool for AEC workforce. Participants not only verified observed trends shown in intervention sessions but also found them to be powerful representations and evidence of issues they intuitively detect during project delivery. Accordingly, our key findings relating to AEC project networks are as follows:

• Organizational and collaboration networks AEC project teams show different network structures. In other words, individuals do not necessarily follow the assigned roles in project networks to facilitate integrative communication practices.  
• As AEC projects go through planning, design, and construction phases, they also iteratively go through coordination and deep knowledge sharing processes. These processes require different communication network structures and tight connectivity of key individuals in transition phases between these processes.
•  Exposure to knowledge transfer behaviors of peers predicts the subsequent knowledge transfer behaviors of team members. However, opinion leaders in an AEC project network are less susceptible to such change.
• Positions of key experts in a project network is as equally important as communication dynamics, since they impact knowledge flows across disciplines and organizations through information exposure, boundary spanning, and expertise diversity.
• Best practices for AEC network interventions are in intentional engagement of experts for improved productivity, strategic personnel assignments, and ensuring network resilience for risk management.

Intellectual Merit:

The intellectual merit of the study lies in the insights to AEC project networks, unveiled through multi-level team science, organizational psychology, cognitive science, and applied science of engineering; unlocking new paths for engineering workforce development and human-technology partnership for improved decision-making. More specifically, the merit of AEC network interventions lies in:

• it’s just in time delivery for decision-making support during project delivery,
• support provided to team members, especially in times of disruption (e.g., personnel turn-over or extraordinary circumstances such as the COVID pandemic) or high cognitive load on key roles and individuals (e.g., fast-paced, high complexity projects),
• team formation for resilient project networks, and
• workforce development through improved understanding of multi-tiered network structures and dynamics for optimized transaction costs and communications in AEC project teams.

Broader Impacts:

The study crossed boundaries of multiple disciplines and enriched training opportunities for two doctoral students, one post-doc, one master’s student, a number of undergraduate students in interdisciplinary research. Both doctoral students in this team gained invaluable industry experiences through the internship supplements to the primary grant, which in turn improved their workforce readiness upon graduation with cutting edge applications of scientific discovery in academic and applied fields. Beyond academic publications and presentations through peer-reviewed journals and conferences in construction engineering field, our team also developed outputs for the broader public: (a) A web-based social network game of AEC projects for training of K-12 students in socio-technical environments of infrastructure engineering; (b) Industry guidelines for team formation and management and network interventions for improved team communications and successful delivery of engineering project disseminated through our website . While the study focused on construction projects for LEED-certifiable buildings, the results provide insights to and future directions for large systems engineering projects in many industries, including manufacturing, civil infrastructure, aerospace, and defense.

Last Modified: 03/11/2025
Modified by: Sinem Mollaoglu