Construction is grounded in proven methods and generations of learning, yet it
continually reinvents itself, evolving with the economy, client needs, materials,
delivery methods, technology, and expectations for building performance.
However, today the pace of that change is far more intense: Contractors
routinely deliver unfamiliar projects on compressed schedules using evolving
technologies, materials, and systems, from digital infrastructure and clean energy to
mass timber, modular construction, artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, and complex
controls. Labor shortages, supply-chain uncertainty, rising costs, and changing
contracts leave little room for error.
The instinct is to label each new challenge "first of a kind" and assess risk from a blank page. Yet what is viewed as new is rarely as novel as it seems.
Even when a project, technology, or material is unfamiliar, its underlying risks often are not. Relevant experience likely exists within the organization or its network; the challenge is finding it, asking the right questions, and applying it early.
Help Is Available, If We Ask Early Enough
Emerging risk should not be managed alone, and construction
companies operate within an ecosystem of professionals who see different parts of
the risk picture.
Peers and industry networks offer an outside view. One candid conversation about what surprised another project team can be more useful than a long presentation about what went well.
Trade partners—often closer to manufacturers, suppliers, labor conditions, and specialty developments—may spot lead-time, installation, or quality issues before they reach the project level. Owners, developers, architects, and engineers can expose risks through their understanding of intended use, design assumptions, operations, and long-term performance.
And, yes, insurers can help. Contractors may hesitate to discuss challenges with insurers, concerned that doing so could create an underwriting problem or be used against them later. But construction insurance is strongest when contractor and insurer maintain an ongoing dialogue, not merely an annual exchange of applications and pricing.
Underwriters, claims professionals, and risk engineers see
outcomes across companies, geographies, project types, and market cycles. The most
outrageous situations cross their desks. Wind turbines damaged by wind? Yep.
Antifire devices causing fires? Sure. Hundreds of units built so that the equipment
meant for those units doesn't quite fit once it arrives? Unfortunately, also
yes.
Rest assured, your insurer wants you to have the benefit of
hearing about these situations so that you don't have to talk about them in your own
debrief meeting. Your account team knows where warning signs emerge, which
interventions work, and which controls hold up under project pressure. That
perspective complements, not replaces, the contractor's expertise. Early
conversations create the best chance to act before a concern or an oversight becomes
a loss.
The Most Overlooked Resource May Be Inside the Company
External expertise matters, but an organization's own experience is often its most underused source of emerging-risk knowledge. When entering a new market or project type, teams often ask, "Who has done this exact thing before?" That useful question is still too narrow. If the answer is "no one," teams may overlook huge swaths of applicable knowledge spread across projects, departments, offices, and people under different labels. The better question is: "Where have we managed risks like these before?"
A contractor new to digital infrastructure may still draw lessons from healthcare, pharmaceutical, laboratory, or advanced-manufacturing work, especially in cleanliness, commissioning, integration, redundancy, documentation, repetitive installation, coordination, and operational continuity.
Likewise, modular work can build on experience with prefabricated
racks, wall panels, pods, or repetitive construction, and mass timber can draw on
established practices for moisture, fire protection, temporary conditions, and
storage.
In their excellent book How Big Things Get
Done, Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan
Gardner urge leaders to compare projects through what they call
reference-class forecasting. For construction companies, the practical implication
of reference-class forecasting is powerful: When you view projects through the lens
of a reference class that includes projects with similar—but not necessarily
identical—challenges, you make the new project "one of a class" instead of "one of a
kind." Now you have a starting point to responsibly identify and manage risk.
Define the reference class by risk characteristics, not only building type: equipment density, commissioning, design maturity, labor loading, material sensitivity, logistics, stakeholder complexity, or schedule pressure. Then examine what teams underestimated, which assumptions failed, where coordination broke down, and which controls worked in the field.
It can be hard to get project teams to open up about these
challenges—understandably. These teams are excellent at problem-solving and want to
present an image that all is always under control, and harvesting these lessons
requires strategy.
One builder that I worked with required project teams to identify
a "construction quality near-miss" in every Monday company meeting. This is powerful
because it signals that leadership knows things are often slightly off track and
need correction, rather than assuming perfection, and that they value the lessons
gained from sharing these incidents.
Why Lessons Learned Are So Hard to Use
The harsh reality is that lessons can be considered "learned" only
when they change a future decision. Most construction companies conduct
lessons-learned exercises, and the challenge is retrieving and applying the
knowledge. Lessons may sit unread in closeout files, be indexed by project rather
than risk, record outcomes without identifying causes, or remain only in employees'
memories.
Silos compound the problem: Preconstruction misses operations'
lessons, regions fail to share, and near misses stay quiet because teams are
reluctant to expose problems.
The action item here is to create a searchable risk inventory that spans project types and tags experience by exposure. For example, accelerated schedules, first-use materials, complex commissioning, occupied renovation, constrained logistics, concentrated trades, overseas procurement, repetitive installation, or extreme weather. Finding and indexing this information may ultimately turn out to be one of the best uses of AI in construction.
Another action could be to add brief, facilitated reviews to
pursuit and preconstruction. There are many variations of this practice already in
use, but the focus is best when expanded to include as many disciplines and
experiences as possible. Bring together people from different projects with similar
risks—including field, estimating, scheduling, safety, quality, trade, and risk
professionals—to challenge assumptions before plans are finalized. The aim is not to
precisely equate new and old projects but to identify familiar elements that can
improve decisions.
Curiosity Is a Risk-Control Strategy
Innovation brings uncertainty; the goal is not to eliminate it or
avoid unfamiliar work but to approach it with disciplined curiosity. Talk with
peers, involve trade partners early, test assumptions with owners and designers, use
insurers' broader view of losses and controls, and search the organization's history
for parallel experience.
Do not assume that the organization knows nothing simply because
it has not done the exact work before: A "new" project type is often a repackaging
of familiar risks. Recognizing those patterns helps companies approach new project
types or markets confidently, ask better questions, and focus resources on what is
truly novel. The knowledge is frequently already there; managing the risk of "the
new" begins with understanding how it is new—and how it is not—and leveraging all of
the experience and learnings at your disposal.
Opinions expressed in Expert Commentary articles are those of the author and are not necessarily held by the author's employer or IRMI. Expert Commentary articles and other IRMI Online content do not purport to provide legal, accounting, or other professional advice or opinion. If such advice is needed, consult with your attorney, accountant, or other qualified adviser.
Construction is grounded in proven methods and generations of learning, yet it continually reinvents itself, evolving with the economy, client needs, materials, delivery methods, technology, and expectations for building performance.
However, today the pace of that change is far more intense: Contractors routinely deliver unfamiliar projects on compressed schedules using evolving technologies, materials, and systems, from digital infrastructure and clean energy to mass timber, modular construction, artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, and complex controls. Labor shortages, supply-chain uncertainty, rising costs, and changing contracts leave little room for error.
The instinct is to label each new challenge "first of a kind" and assess risk from a blank page. Yet what is viewed as new is rarely as novel as it seems.
Even when a project, technology, or material is unfamiliar, its underlying risks often are not. Relevant experience likely exists within the organization or its network; the challenge is finding it, asking the right questions, and applying it early.
Help Is Available, If We Ask Early Enough
Emerging risk should not be managed alone, and construction companies operate within an ecosystem of professionals who see different parts of the risk picture.
Peers and industry networks offer an outside view. One candid conversation about what surprised another project team can be more useful than a long presentation about what went well.
Trade partners—often closer to manufacturers, suppliers, labor conditions, and specialty developments—may spot lead-time, installation, or quality issues before they reach the project level. Owners, developers, architects, and engineers can expose risks through their understanding of intended use, design assumptions, operations, and long-term performance.
And, yes, insurers can help. Contractors may hesitate to discuss challenges with insurers, concerned that doing so could create an underwriting problem or be used against them later. But construction insurance is strongest when contractor and insurer maintain an ongoing dialogue, not merely an annual exchange of applications and pricing.
Underwriters, claims professionals, and risk engineers see outcomes across companies, geographies, project types, and market cycles. The most outrageous situations cross their desks. Wind turbines damaged by wind? Yep. Antifire devices causing fires? Sure. Hundreds of units built so that the equipment meant for those units doesn't quite fit once it arrives? Unfortunately, also yes.
Rest assured, your insurer wants you to have the benefit of hearing about these situations so that you don't have to talk about them in your own debrief meeting. Your account team knows where warning signs emerge, which interventions work, and which controls hold up under project pressure. That perspective complements, not replaces, the contractor's expertise. Early conversations create the best chance to act before a concern or an oversight becomes a loss.
The Most Overlooked Resource May Be Inside the Company
External expertise matters, but an organization's own experience is often its most underused source of emerging-risk knowledge. When entering a new market or project type, teams often ask, "Who has done this exact thing before?" That useful question is still too narrow. If the answer is "no one," teams may overlook huge swaths of applicable knowledge spread across projects, departments, offices, and people under different labels. The better question is: "Where have we managed risks like these before?"
A contractor new to digital infrastructure may still draw lessons from healthcare, pharmaceutical, laboratory, or advanced-manufacturing work, especially in cleanliness, commissioning, integration, redundancy, documentation, repetitive installation, coordination, and operational continuity.
Likewise, modular work can build on experience with prefabricated racks, wall panels, pods, or repetitive construction, and mass timber can draw on established practices for moisture, fire protection, temporary conditions, and storage.
In their excellent book How Big Things Get Done, Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner urge leaders to compare projects through what they call reference-class forecasting. For construction companies, the practical implication of reference-class forecasting is powerful: When you view projects through the lens of a reference class that includes projects with similar—but not necessarily identical—challenges, you make the new project "one of a class" instead of "one of a kind." Now you have a starting point to responsibly identify and manage risk.
Define the reference class by risk characteristics, not only building type: equipment density, commissioning, design maturity, labor loading, material sensitivity, logistics, stakeholder complexity, or schedule pressure. Then examine what teams underestimated, which assumptions failed, where coordination broke down, and which controls worked in the field.
It can be hard to get project teams to open up about these challenges—understandably. These teams are excellent at problem-solving and want to present an image that all is always under control, and harvesting these lessons requires strategy.
One builder that I worked with required project teams to identify a "construction quality near-miss" in every Monday company meeting. This is powerful because it signals that leadership knows things are often slightly off track and need correction, rather than assuming perfection, and that they value the lessons gained from sharing these incidents.
Why Lessons Learned Are So Hard to Use
The harsh reality is that lessons can be considered "learned" only when they change a future decision. Most construction companies conduct lessons-learned exercises, and the challenge is retrieving and applying the knowledge. Lessons may sit unread in closeout files, be indexed by project rather than risk, record outcomes without identifying causes, or remain only in employees' memories.
Silos compound the problem: Preconstruction misses operations' lessons, regions fail to share, and near misses stay quiet because teams are reluctant to expose problems.
The action item here is to create a searchable risk inventory that spans project types and tags experience by exposure. For example, accelerated schedules, first-use materials, complex commissioning, occupied renovation, constrained logistics, concentrated trades, overseas procurement, repetitive installation, or extreme weather. Finding and indexing this information may ultimately turn out to be one of the best uses of AI in construction.
Another action could be to add brief, facilitated reviews to pursuit and preconstruction. There are many variations of this practice already in use, but the focus is best when expanded to include as many disciplines and experiences as possible. Bring together people from different projects with similar risks—including field, estimating, scheduling, safety, quality, trade, and risk professionals—to challenge assumptions before plans are finalized. The aim is not to precisely equate new and old projects but to identify familiar elements that can improve decisions.
Curiosity Is a Risk-Control Strategy
Innovation brings uncertainty; the goal is not to eliminate it or avoid unfamiliar work but to approach it with disciplined curiosity. Talk with peers, involve trade partners early, test assumptions with owners and designers, use insurers' broader view of losses and controls, and search the organization's history for parallel experience.
Do not assume that the organization knows nothing simply because it has not done the exact work before: A "new" project type is often a repackaging of familiar risks. Recognizing those patterns helps companies approach new project types or markets confidently, ask better questions, and focus resources on what is truly novel. The knowledge is frequently already there; managing the risk of "the new" begins with understanding how it is new—and how it is not—and leveraging all of the experience and learnings at your disposal.
Opinions expressed in Expert Commentary articles are those of the author and are not necessarily held by the author's employer or IRMI. Expert Commentary articles and other IRMI Online content do not purport to provide legal, accounting, or other professional advice or opinion. If such advice is needed, consult with your attorney, accountant, or other qualified adviser.