Coordination meeting cadence gets set at project kickoff and rarely revisited afterward, even though the gap between a weekly and a biweekly review rhythm has a genuinely measurable effect on how long clashes stay open before getting resolved - and stale, unresolved clashes carry their own compounding risk the longer they sit unaddressed.
| Meeting cadence | Typical average clash open-to-resolved time | Best fit |
|---|---|---|
| Weekly | 5 to 9 days | Active coordination phases, complex MEP-dense projects, fast-track schedules |
| Biweekly | 10 to 18 days | Lower-complexity phases, or projects with slower overall design/construction pace |
Why a Fixed Cadence Set at Kickoff Often Mismatches Actual Project Needs
A cadence locked in once at project kickoff often mismatches the project's actual coordination intensity as it evolves through different phases - biweekly reviews during early design development may be entirely adequate, since design is still broad-strokes and clash risk is genuinely lower, but the identical biweekly cadence applied during an intensive MEP coordination phase lets clashes accumulate for considerably longer before anyone catches them, precisely when the pace of design change is highest and clash risk is greatest.
A Scenario Showing Why Clashes Left Open Longer Get Discovered the Hard Way
Picture a project running a biweekly coordination cadence throughout its entire design phase, including a particularly intensive period where MEP routing through a dense ceiling void is being actively finalised alongside ongoing structural revisions. A clash between a newly routed duct and a recently adjusted beam depth emerges during this intensive period but isn't scheduled to be reviewed for up to two weeks under the biweekly cadence - in that window, it's genuinely possible for the clash to be independently discovered on site by an installer working from drawings that were current when they were issued but have since been overtaken by the unresolved coordination conflict, defeating much of the purpose of running coordination meetings in the first place. Many well-run projects avoid this specific failure mode by deliberately shifting cadence - biweekly during quieter design phases, weekly or even more frequent during the intensive coordination window - rather than locking in one fixed rhythm for the entire project.
Why More Frequent Isn't Always Simply Better
It's worth noting that increasing meeting frequency beyond what the actual pace of model updates justifies doesn't keep improving outcomes - coordination meetings held more often than new information actually arrives waste time reviewing the same unresolved issues repeatedly without any new development to act on, which is its own form of inefficiency distinct from, but just as real as, meeting too infrequently.