Listening to and Learning from our Federal Customers

The intricacies of planning and executing federal construction projects are immense, and Kahua recognizes those details are specific to our federal government customers. So, we thought, why not go to Washington D.C. and provide federal agencies with the chance to gather and share their ideas as we share our path forward? 

Our first ever Federal Construction Forum – a jam-packed one-day event at the Mayflower Hotel last week – yielded constructive conversations. Our goal was to bring together agencies responsible for owning and managing capital construction projects, industry partners and subject matter experts to learn, educate and network with peers around best practices and industry trends.   

And that we did. 

Attendees from more than 10 federal organizations and agencies – as well as 10 industry partners and subject matter experts – were present, including chief information officers, directors and other leaders.  Also present were representatives from federal organizations that recently selected Kahua and are just beginning their implementation journey, as well as prospective customers who are embarking on the technology selection process. 

Participants heard about the federal General Services Administration (GSA) implementation of Kahua’s construction project management information system (PMIS), key lessons learned from that engagement and the importance of change management for successful implementation. Industry experts shared the importance of federal agencies doing business with cloud software vendors that are FedRAMP Authorized (which Kahua is) and discussed technology trends and considerations for adapting to the unforeseen trends of the future. 

We wrapped up with Kahua President Brian Moore’s introduction to Kahua’s asset centric approach to project management. Any time Brian discusses this game-changing capability – which aggregates data created during project design / construction and effortlessly shares it at handover for asset operation and maintenance – the crowd listens. It ends the costly, time-consuming project-after-the-project scenario; it is the future of construction and asset data management. 

We shared a lot of information, and we collected quite a bit, too. We learned that an intimate setting of peers can generate significant momentum and discussion and that working closely with our customers and partners on the issues they feel are critical is more necessary than ever. 

We learned that people are interested in Kahua but even more, people are interested in learning from each other on how to select and successfully implement technology within their organizations.  

Other key takeaways included: 

• Innovative ways to approach change management and how getting into the personas of end users is key to finding the critics and guides to successfully navigate change.   
• Technicalities of FedRAMP and the emergence of additional requirements.   
• Pain points and challenges with security and how to navigate the FedRAMP world.  
• How important consolidating data is to making future decisions. 

If you have  questions, please reach out and let me know. 

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(Pictured above at the Federal Construction Forum are Kahua’s John Tuskowski, Joe Guzman and Darin Stinson.)