Communication and information flowduring construction project execution is often discussed in the literature. Numerous scholars note the presence of problems with communication and information flow and highlight that these problems also affect construction project completion time and cost. The vast majority of studies on the impact of communication on construction project completion time and cost takes on a qualitative character and there is a lack of quantitative analyses of this subject. To address these deficiencies, the authors of this paper propose a quantitative approach to assessing communication between construction project participants in the aspect of its impact on said project’s completion time and cost. The authors used meta-network theory to model and analyse the problem, as it can fully depict the problem’s complexity. The method proposed allows for dynamic identification of key information flow paths between project participants, which determine its performance in an essential way. The proposed approach can support decision-makers in effective management of communication between a construction project’s participants, which has a positive carryover to achieving planned project goals. The method was tested on a real-world development project that featured the construction of a housing complex in Katowice, Poland.

In the literature, researchers present construction projects as temporary self-organising coalition networks, composed of specialist entities that work towards set goals. The number of parties involved in the various processes during construction causes communications relations to be exceedingly complex and to change. The environment of a construction project is dynamic and complex, and self-organising communication networks are sensitive to institutional and social change. It becomes necessary to identify situations rooted in both insufficient communication during the carrying out of a project and its excess, which generates unnecessary cost. Effective control of information flow within self-organising communication networks through its planning and monitoring by project management can contribute to achieving project goals. This paper presents a proposal of an optimisation approach (in terms of minimising communication costs) to information flow planning that accounts for various constraints, on the example of a real-world case of building a housing complex in Poland.

The article proposes a new approach to the identification of key agents, knowledge and resources required to complete tasks being performed as a part of construction projects. The author used the concept of meta-networks to model the relations between agents, knowledge, resources and tasks of a project. Up until now, the identification of key means of production employed a measure of performance of the project that was modelled using a metanetwork. However, this measure is limited as it does not take into consideration the significance of individual tasks or the relations between them. The author thus proposed a structural modification of the performance measure for the purposes of identifying key agents, knowledge and resources of a planned project. A case study analysis has confirmed the application potential of the proposed approach. In practice, the results that were obtained can aid planners in evaluating the performance of a project's plan. Information about key agents, knowledge and resources can constitute the basis for drafting alternative plans which would be more resistant to failure due to the possible loss of key means of production over the course of carrying out a project.