Collaboration is said to be able to improve everything from productivity, innovation and customer satisfaction. Is collaboration or lack-of an issue in the Highways and Transportation sector?  If a positive, how can the full potential of collaboration be realised? How can collaboration boost productivity and drive better results?  Today (10/07/2019) leaders in the field, discussed ideas and examined the latest innovations at the CIHT in London.

The presenters all said that collaboration is not a buzzword but can deliver tangible benefits for everyone involved. As their presentations showed, collaboration does not happen by itself. A number of common themes throughout the day was the importance of behaviour, integration, aligning goals and utilising technology and data. People who show distrust and are reluctant to be open and honest is a major barrier to collaboration, so leadership is needed to change these behaviours. Integration of organisations whether by working in the same offices or creating strategic boards with representation from everyone involved is very helpful to get project actors on the same page and aligning values and goals with the clients values. 

In the second session of the day the uptake of digital technologies was discussed, and it was pointed out how the sector is lacking behind in this area and how the upside of embracing digitisation potentially could improve productivity significantly. CIHT are carrying out a survey on the state of digitisation in the industry and would invite your views on the matter by taking the survey:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/CIHTDigitalisationSurvey