Improving Interactive Communication by Computer in Value Management Workshop

In the Value Management (VM) workshops, VM team often composes of multidisciplinary members with different professional backgrounds (e.g., architects, structure engineers, etc.) from various companies. Sometimes, they may even come from different cities and regions. Therefore, it is hard to arrange all VM team members participating in a workshop at the same time in the same place, especially for the international mega projects. However, it is vital to ensure effective communication during the VM workshop for maintaining and enhancing the team spirit in the complicated decision process. This study aims at investigating the effects of three communication modes (i.e., face to face communication, online communication, and both face to face and online communication) between various team members on the performance of VM workshops (function analysis, creativity, and evaluation). An intervention study via the three communication modes was conducted, post-questionnaire surveys were adopted to collect data from the VM participants who joined the intervention study. Statistical analysis (i.e., ANOVA) was used to compare the level of satisfaction among the three groups. The results surprisingly reveal that team members using online communication tools by the computer can significantly improve the information sharing process and facilitate the VM workshop, particularly for overcoming the time limitation in a restricted location, but the totally independent environment is not fit for function analysis phase. Some recommendations such as the internet and computer-based systems (e.g., Google Sheet) will then be suggested for enhancing the communication in the VM workshop.