How to get the best out of your Daily Activity Briefings

Daily Activity Briefings (DABs) Best Practice

Daily Activity Briefings or Daily Huddles can often be unproductive. Meetings take too long, trades are disengaged from the schedule and there is no clear record or commitment to planned works.

Risks and constraints aren’t addressed or take too long to close out, turning them into issues that feed delays.

When delivered effectively, a well-structured Daily Activity Briefing (DABs meeting) promotes teamwork, keeps everyone focused on their tasks, reinforces accountability, and ensures that work progresses smoothly. This vital meeting helps address issues promptly while aligning teams on priorities and safety protocols.

An effective Daily Activity Briefing will drive:

• Clear Communication: Everyone understands the day’s objectives, any potential constraints, and how their work fits into the larger project.  
• Ownership of Tasks: Each team member is clear on their responsibilities for the day and feels accountable for completing their tasks.         
• Flexibility: The plan can be adjusted quickly if needed, ensuring the team stays productive despite any unforeseen challenges.         
• Commitment to Safety: Safety is always prioritised, especially in high-risk areas, ensuring the wellbeing of the team.         
• Proactive Issue Resolution: Issues that arise during the day are addressed promptly, preventing delays and keeping the project on track.              
• Seamless Collaboration: Clear communication between trades and teams results in smooth handoffs and minimal conflicts on-site.   

How to Make it Happen

Over the years, we’ve helped hundreds of teams across the globe transform their Daily Activity Briefing (DABs) meetings. Not only implementing our software, DataTouch but also driving best practice techniques to help projects get the best out of DABs (see Case Study):

Preparing for Daily Activity Briefings 

To ensure a productive meeting, supervisors can review the weekly schedule, prepare to brief their teams on daily tasks, updates, and challenges, and confirm the attendance of key personnel with reminders.

Additionally, having all necessary tools and data, including schedules, milestones, and unresolved issues, readily available ensures informed decision-making during the briefing. This can be made easy with our integrated software.

Ensure that trades have marked up their work areas prior to the DABs meeting (this can be done in DataTouch). This not only reduces the meeting time, but also means the DABs meeting is less focused on administration, and more on resolving issues.

During Daily Activity Briefings 

Use a dedicated facilitator who is in charge of driving consistently effective and productive meetings.

Drive commitment and accountability from subcontractors by ensuring they are responsible for marking out their own areas of responsibility.

Keep DABs meetings focused and efficient by reviewing progress, setting clear objectives, and addressing potential constraints such as material shortages or safety concerns.

When issues do arise, understand the Why and focus on the How. Drive solutions-based discussions.

Use visual communication tools – One of the most effective ways to communicate planned activity is to visually mark up a digital site drawing. This not only instantly exposes clashes, but leaves a clear record of all agreed works that can be reviewed at any time. Datatouch is proven to be the most effective solution for visualising planned activity across the site.

Keep it short and punchy. When everyone has prepped accordingly, meetings should focus on reviewing progress and identifying / resolving any risks or constraints before they become issues.

Post Daily Activity Briefing Follow up

Put the data to work. Use the data in your DABs report to drive behaviour outside of the meeting room. Our digital DABs report can be automatically emailed across projects ensuring critical information is disseminated quickly.

Maintain efficiency by monitoring task execution, offering support, and adjusting plans as necessary to address delays or equipment issues. Record progress, note outstanding tasks, and prepare for the next briefing to ensure a smooth transition.

By staying proactive and adaptable, you can keep the project on track and ensure each workday builds effectively on the previous one.