Building Innovation

Conclusion

Cultivating innovation and best practices throughout the industry must be treated as a never-ending process that requires an ongoing and collective buy-in from each stakeholder in the process. To facilitate that effort, the Task Force offers the following overarching recommendations, all of which have been pulled directly from its discussions.

• OPEN THE CONVERSATION EARLY AND KEEP IT GOING. No single person on any project team has a monopoly on good ideas. Bring all project stakeholders together early and often, and give them a voice at the table. There is no innovation without collaboration and mutual respect.
• SEE OPPORTUNITY WHERE OTHERS FOCUS ON RISK. Saying "yes" to innovation means doing the work to understand, manage, and mitigate its risks, rather than taking the easy path and assuming the risk is too high. Innovators, by definition, must behave like entrepreneurs.
• CHALLENGE THE BUILDING INDUSTRY TO GROW. The building community must challenge itself, clients, and colleagues to look beyond what has been done before and develop the habit of working outside comfort zones. This includes looking to other industries for best practices and innovation that can be adapted for use in the building industry.

These recommendations will help guide a new Council on Innovation and Best Practices recently established by the Building Congress to continue the conversation begun by the Task Force and advance the work already underway by its Workforce Development and Product Innovations Committees.

"What the Task Force did so effectively over its two-year term is bring together some of the best and brightest from all sectors of the industry to share information and brainstorm ideas to make the building community in New York City stronger and more effective," said Richard T. Anderson, President of the Building Congress. "But for all that the Task Force accomplished, we should view this as the end of the beginning, rather than the beginning of the end. There's still much more to do, and quite frankly, the process of innovation has no end date. The addition of this new, permanent Council to the Building Congress program is an important and significant next step in the right direction."