The Technology and Innovation categories within the Auckland CCNZ Hynds Construction Awards recognise the innovative achievements of our civil construction members and those who demonstrate creative thinking, determined problem-solving and transformative processes for people, plant, projects and material.
We wanted to give an inside look into what we are hoping to see in a submission, to help you create the best entry possible.
- Business impact
A strong customer use case always starts with a business challenge. Think about what innovation means to your business – people, plant, projects and material and effectively show what your business looked like before the implementation of the innovation, and how the business has grown since deployment. Including relevant metrics is especially important to help the judges better understand your story. - Digital transformation
Tell your customer stories by showcasing how the innovation not only solved a business challenge, but also helped an entire organisation come around to new ways of working. The judges will be on the lookout for stories that show how innovation helped improve processes across multiple teams, or where the implementation led to a radical change in a team’s way of thinking or how it helped you look at sustainability. - Openness
Look at your innovation as “open source principles”, what was the impact when you involve the wider team and adopted a more open culture along the way.
Maybe your innovation was born out of a project, and a field team member identified a task that helped the wider team build a solution to better handle a process. Tell a story that includes the following: mindset in your business, promoted diversity, collaboration and meritocracy. Showing how innovation impacted your employee culture always makes for a great submission. - Community impact or influence
Make sure you showcase how the innovation not only helped your business reach your business goals, but how the innovation has had an impact in the communities you serve as well.
For example: think about how migrating from paper-based systems to a cloud-based digital platform improved efficiency for your people, projects, plant and materials. What does this sound like in step-by-step process, who did you involve, when did you decide that doing the same thing was only going to keep you standing still but investing in change was going to take you ahead of the pack. - Tell your story and set the stage
Provide story telling on how your innovation impacts your business, maybe you want to include how you changed your processes when the COVID-19 pandemic affected the civil contracting industry. Tell us how you make the world around you a better place. - Cool factor
A key to any good submission is a cool story, and we’ve had some great ones! We’ve seen stories of drones being used for surveying, the modernisation of obtaining tenders, how to improve a high traffic area while showcasing innovation to the general public, how to support staff and remove repetitive tasks so their skills are used more effectively for their growth and the businesses growth. - Before submission, circulate the entry
Others will often be able to spot important points that are missing from the entry text. Revise your text to accommodate the feedback. Have your most pedantic colleague proof-read the entry for typos and sense-check the document. Also, ask someone who was NOT involved with the innovation to read the entry. Is it easy to understand? What do they think are the key takeaways from the entry? Are these the ones you intended? - Once you have completed the main entry, work on your executive summary
Present the most important details of each question in no more than three or four sentences, covering the brief, the strategy, the activity and the outcomes, to help make it an award-winning entry. - High Resolution Photo
Make sure you have included a high resolution photo that reflects the innovation. This will be shown on the night, it is important that it reflects the entry. - Finally, moving forward
Get that entry submitted, but while you are there collating and discussing the key information around the innovation, think about other categories you might want to enter. Was this innovation part of a major project? Who was the individual that drove this change or helped with implementation? This will set you up for other entries that celebrate the project and people involved and puts you in a good position to easily prepare award entries for other categories.
In the end, it’s not a magic formula or a checklist of standard things that will make your entry a winner. It comes down to the ability to tell a compelling story. Take us beyond your projects and tell us the impact the innovation has had on your people, project, plant and material as well your business and on the lives of others.
Remember the process of preparing an awards entry is a valuable exercise, allowing the celebration of people within your team that should be recognised. The impact that an entry into an awards programme can have on your team is huge, as it demonstrates that you value and take pride in a job well done.
In addition, the potential exposure gained from a nominated or winning award entry could bring you to the attention of new employees, new clients, new collaborators and new projects that may become future award entries of their own.
Now it is up to you to get started.