Built on Collaboration

This is such an extensive topic, that I've split it into three parts. The previous post put forward my belief that email is not a suitable tool for project correspondence management. This post will highlight some of its limitations, and the third part will compare email capabilities to what project collaboration tools deliver.

Many of the projects we work on don't allow email to be used for formal project correspondence. Clients see it as uncontrolled, untraceable, unable to handle large files reliably and severely lacking as a filing mechanism.

Uncontrolled - Email gives a manager on a construction project no visibility what his staff has sent to contractors, vendors, consultants and clients. He doesn't even know what has been received by members of his own team. As he can only see into his own mailbox, he has no control over what others have sent and how his staff has responded, meaning a loss of control and ineffective management.

Untraceable - As email uses standard http protocols, users have no idea whether sent mail was ever received by the intended recipient. They also don't know whether they have received mail that was intended for them, as email does not provide any delivery guarantees. This also means that email is of limited value in an arbitration situation, as it is difficult to prove beyond doubt that a mail was ever received.

Inability to handle large files - Even if a company's mail server can handle 5 MB attachments, can the recipient's? How can the sender be sure that the drawings were received? When drawing transmittals contain 10, 20 or even 100 drawings, each at least 500 KB in size, email struggles to cope. In many cases this means that formal correspondence (letters, drawings, RFIs, etc) are handled in different systems and are not logged or tracked in real time.

Unsafe - Email is an open, non-encrypted protocol. Almost anyone can intercept, read or alter outgoing and incoming email. Retention of data can be an issue, too. In Outlook (for example), mail is saved in a .pst file, which has a default limitation of 1 GB. A typical project manager or doc controller will hit 1 GB after a few months. Most users are unaware that MS Outlook then starts to delete the oldest mail, to keep the .pst file to the 1 GB (or whatever their default setting is). When a company doesn't back up its .pst files (and most don't), this is information lost forever.

There are clearly some considerable downsides and risks to using email for managing critical project information. Project collaboration tools provide an industry-tailored alternative. The next post will look at what they can do that email can not.

Labels: Good practice