And for my next trick...

That request triggers the IT marketeer to paint beautiful vistas in which business pains are a distant memory, profits soar like eagles and lions lay down with lambs.

It's no different in construction, where something as basic as an extranet is called a "project collaboration service", or an electronic filing system is a "robust service for avoiding delays, boosting your team's productivity, and increasing margins across the enterprise".

Great! But what is it?

Having covered IT for several years I was suspicious when I attended the launch of the Avanti Programme in March. It was billed as "ICT-enabled collaborative working". ICT, by the way, stands for information and communications technology.

I turned up mainly to hear Laing O'Rourke chairman Ray O'Rourke, who never speaks to the press. As the launch progressed I felt more and more jaded as industry figures such as Richard Saxon of Building Design Partnership, Roger Blundell of Balfour Beatty and Ray O'Rourke of Laing O'Rourke stood up to say how great this thing, Avanti, was.

Great I thought, but what is it? What's the IT?

I understood it to have benefited from £750,000 from the DTI because it was a Partnership in Innovation project. I understood it to have a suspiciously well-connected group of partners and associates, including Asite, be, Building Design Partnership and Balfour Beatty. I also noted its worthy objective: "To deliver improved project and business performance through the use of ICT to support collaborative working."

Great, but what's the IT? Even after cornering two Avanti henchmen I was none the wiser. They seemed unable or unwilling to come to the point. And it was not until a later conversation with Avanti programme manager Paul Waskett I realised they weren't being slippery marketeers. It's just that I was asking the wrong question. Avanti is not new software or a web portal.

It's a technique for project teams to use the CAD systems, analysis packages and other IT tools already out there, only better. "We're not suggesting that teams take on some way-out new piece of technology," Waskett said.

While that sinks in, we'll move on to another confusing thing about Avanti: it's not for sale. There are no consultants waiting to convert you to an alien way of doing things for exorbitant fees. They'll do it for nothing.

we’re not suggesting that teams take on some new, way-out piece of technology

Paul Waskett, programme manager, Avanti

Finally, it's not even widely available. The programme is looking for just a few projects, maybe three, to adopt the Avanti method. That's all they can service at the moment. The point of these initial projects is to demonstrate the business case. When DTI funding runs out in 2006, Avanti will either have been taken up widely enough to survive as a concept – or not.

Keeping It live
But getting back to the actual method, Waskett says its roots lie in removing waste from design management. CAD is widely used. Extranets are widely used. But for the most part, the drawings that get passed from architect, through the engineers to the specialist fabricators are static. Yes, we may transfer those drawings electronically, but the next link in the chain often prints them and replicates a significant amount in order to achieve his or her particular overlay (ductwork design, for example).

Waskett says the Avanti consultants will help construction project teams treat those files as "live" not static, so removing the need to replicate the previous stage. This means the CAD systems, the engineering analysis packages, even the estimating programs have to "talk" to each other.

Surely we're into sheer blue sky here? Apparently not. Waskett says that a number of these products can interpret data created in others, so its possible to get started without inventing new ones. In cases where a project team uses packages that are not quite compatible (but not too incompatible) Avanti has experts able to perform system integration by writing link-up software, but Waskett says this can't be the focus.

"We're not here to sort out their technology problems and we won't spend our money developing new software," he said. "We'll focus more on process," he said. "When they need to exchange documents, in what format and what they need to look like. It's about using the IT they already have more effectively."

This means Avanti is setting itself up to force software houses to make their products more compatible up and down the supply chain. Waskett doesn't deny this, admitting that if enough project teams take up the Avanti method (or something like it), totally incommunicative CAD systems will find themselves at a disadvantage.

The 'product' on test
There is a limited opportunity for companies to take advantage of the Avanti programme free of charge. Waskett is looking for a few projects whose teams are willing to implement the Avanti toolkit. He doesn't like the word 'pilot' because it implies someone fiddling around with things and watching what happens. But these projects will provide Avanti with feedback on what works and what doesn't.

He needs three 'core' projects and a larger number of 'satellite' projects. Core means the whole supply chain is involved, while satellite projects involve just one part of the supply chain. A satellite project has already begun: Stent and Buro Happold are using Avanti to explore data exchange improvements in the supply chain on one of their projects.

Core projects will be worth between £2m and £50m. It doesn't have to be a partnering gig but the project team needs to be committed to collaborating. "If the main contractor wants to do it but the consultants don't, all our resources will be used up just maintaining a level of buy-in," Waskett says. "The last thing we want is for people to be brought along kicking and screaming. After all, it's about exchanging information."