Web for Construction Managers

Evernote for Construction Managers Intro

2011-11-29T18:20:00.001-08:00

For years I have been looking for the perfect to do list application, first on the web and then for my iPod and then for my iPad. I started with Remember the Milk, then found Toodledo to be more versatile. After entering hundreds of to do's, both personal and for work, I find myself still struggling to find it useful. I colleague told me about a year ago he was finding Evernote very useful for the iPad, so I decided to give it a try. I have to tell you, it has a lot of promise. It can be used as a to do list manager, which I will explain in a future post, but it can do so much more. (note, one thing missing is projected completion dates) And it does everything beautifully. I want to first cover some of the very cool features, and then I'll go into how I use it for project management.

The first awesome feature is that it displays your files in a picture type format:

This allows you to use your pdf tool (in my case Bluebeam Revu) to cut and paste a snapshot of a drawing right into Evernote. Yes, you can probably do this with your email program, but after you send the email, how easy is it to retrieve it. By pasting the detail into Evernote, and then adding notes, tags, etc. and placing it in a notebook, I have made it very retrievable forever.

Then you can share this note in several ways. You can click share and then email the entire note, or get the URL from Evernote and email it. Your colleagues will click a link to pull up the note whether they have an Evernote account or note, but they should!

iPad, Goodreader and Dropbox, what a team!

2011-03-08T16:13:00.001-08:00

I would absolutely recommend the Goodreader/Dropbox combo. With all of your field related files stored in Dropbox, such as shop drawings, product data, contract documents, you open Goodreader's web server. There you can directly access files in any number of web based storage solutions like Dropbox, Box.net Google Docs, etc. This allows you to directly download files into the iPad's storage, which of course allows for faster response time when moving around drawings, than accessing the files through the web. Goodreader's viewer is great. The markup capabilities are limited, but I haven't seen anything with any more than that. These tools are awesome. You can have your entire project directory at your disposal in the field. The only thing is flipping through drawings on an iPad is not fast, and there's no way to go directly to the detail you are looking for. My dream is for my drawings to all have Bluebeam action markups on them so you just click the detail tag and it takes you right to the detail. But doing that in Bluebeam would take some time.

Another collaboration product - this one is FREE!

2010-09-17T17:36:00.000-07:00

For the past three years I have been scouring the web looking for a collaboration product for construction. Simple, user friendly, but robust enough. There are hundreds of offerings. Just search for "project management web sites" or "collaboration web sites". I'm checking out Collanos because, well, it's free! Here is an review I found in eweek.com I have downloaded and installed it and I'll report back what I think. If anyone wishes to join me please comment here and I'll invite you to join.

So I have not seen any real problems with this fabulous free collaboration tool. It looks like this:

You set up a workspace and invite colleagues. Then you link files, start discussions, and assign tasks. It's pretty darn functional for any small team that wants to cut down on email and track your open issues and files.

I have been unsuccessful in the past in using a project team collaboration tool like Collanos for several reasons, the main factor being cost (or so I thought). But another issue is this, please communicate with email. As antiquated, confusing, and plain lousy as it is at tracking information, it's the way we've come to work. It's unfortunate because Collanos and any of the other free or pay systems are just so much better.

I envision a project where we converse with other project team members on a more casual level as opposed to bumping into someone and immediately trying to think of what they owe you. Instead of: "hey, how are ya?" (while thinking what does she owe me?), you say "hey I saw your post about the CCU, great answer!" Instead of thinking "didn't Joe have a comment on this issue, now wait a few minutes while I look through my email for it, I know it's in here somewhere, I think last week or maybe the week before, oh here it is, oh no that's not it, can I call you back when I find it?", you say, "and on this CCU issue, did you see Joe's comment right after yours? It's here in the thread".

Maybe I'm dreaming but with all the apps out there with this very solution, thousands are using it in other industries. In my opinion no one carries as much detailed information than large construction project teams.

I think there are two main problems with these solutions though. One, everybody uses email, and two, people and companies worry about the safety of the communications and archiving it. We want to be able to retrieve it years down the road. Some sites are now making it possible to use email to communicate but the discussions appear in the site for review of all the comments in one place. So that handles first issue. The second issue should really not be a problem but the perception makes people nervous. Collanos actually stores the data and files on your hard drive. So that solves the second issue. So what if your hard drive crashes> My understanding is the other team members also have the data on their machines so that takes care of that issue.

So now the only problem I can think of if taking this huge leap. In my opinion, it's worth it.

Another task app for Google Apps

2010-09-11T05:43:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6HXA85ZpZE&feature=player_profilepage

2010-09-01T19:08:00.000-07:00

This is the simulation from timerliner in Navisworks Manage of the performance mockup model we have been working on. Enjoy.

What can you do with Box and the iPad? Let's find out.

2010-08-30T18:28:00.000-07:00

This is great. This is the future of construction. This is the present for those with the foresight and the guts to think outside the box (no pun intended). This always works with dropbox.com, woobius, et al.

What can you do with Box and the iPad? Let's find out.

Construction Schedules - Detailed or Summary?

2010-08-29T06:26:00.000-07:00

Our company recently asked our director of scheduling to do a few seminars for the company. Before the seminar he informed me this one would not be his usual "educational" seminar preaching the nuts and bolts of scheduling but more philosophical. He's a deep thinker anyway and after 26 years of producing high quality schedules for one company, he's developed some interesting opinions.

The main point he was trying to make is 2 + 2 = 4. The math works and it doesn't lie. Assuming all of your estimates are educated ones and the logic is sound, the schedule doesn't lie. We lie when we think we know better than the result of the schedule. It's basically an equation, a very complicated one, but the answer speaks to us whether we like the answer or not. If we change the schedule’s assumptions regarding durations or logic to make it “fit”, we should document and highlight the changes for the team to discuss. Sweeping those changes under the rug may or may not cause problems, but it certainly a disservice to the project. The IPD approach calls for more transparency than that, and teamwork.

This led to an interesting discussion as to tracking the actual against the plan, and the importance of maintaining the original structure of the schedule, as the project progresses and updates are performed. My own experience is schedules tend to change drastically from the original, so much so that it's impossible to compare it to the baseline.

The CEO of our company brought up the fact that many of our clients believe our schedules should be more detailed. We also felt that a milestone or summary schedule is equally important. I have felt for about 20 years that a project team should have milestones set every few months just as goals should be set in life.

My interest was really piqued, though when someone asked, "it would be nice if we could have the schedule with us as we walk the job, with just the tasks that we should be working on today." That's exactly what we need, we need to simplify a detailed schedule, and make it accessible to the field. The problem with the detailed schedule is it's complexity makes it too cumbersome for anything but a thorough, long analysis and review.

The information should be “pushed” to the end user in a daily and weekly format. The Getting Things Done system recommends daily, weekly and monthly reviews. I am trying that system out at work and finding it useful as a reminder for those overlooked items that can bite you later. Construction scheduling doesn’t really have that problem as I see it. The field staff has enough experience to know what comes next. What they don’t have firmly fixed in their minds is what the dates are. Tasks routinely run over but theirs really no urgency unless it’s holding up the next task. But those non critical items can become critical.

So let’s talk about software. Primavera was recently taken over by Oracle, and our scheduling dept. is concerned that their focus will be manufacturing and other industries, not construction. Microsoft project is widely used, but our company does not like it as a construction solution. I like the idea of @Task, a web based application that allows for complex schedules. What I found was a very complicated experience and a need for training, which is probably where they intend to generate most of their revenue. The concept of making the schedule much more accessible interests me greatly, and adding discussions provides a more organized, systematic documentation of the project “story”.

I can see the superintendent asking the project manager the status of the materials, the question being forwarded to the subcontractor’s project coordinator, and the replies all being conveniently accessible to all. Over the next few weeks I’m going to look into exporting the schedule data into an iPod to do list, like Toodledo or Remember the Milk.

I am interested in hearing your opinions and experiences with various applications, especially if anyone has used the application as discussed above.

Google phone

2010-08-28T05:54:00.000-07:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/27/AR2010082702107.html?hpid=news-col-blog

Woobius - now with correspondence/email tracking

2010-08-27T09:42:00.000-07:00

woobius.com has added a feature that allows for a discussion like tracking of emails related to each topic. You start the discussion in woobius, pick who is on the distribution group and they all get emails, when they reply all of the replies are consolidated in order. I asked them to add due dates and priorities and they replied they are already working on it! This site has some real potential, but they need to add drag and drop like dropbox and box.net.

Dim Dim

2009-06-14T19:16:00.001-07:00

Everyone has now heard of Gotomeeting. The advertising blitz is on and the technology is really becoming commonplace. And for good reason. It really is nice to be able to share your work with someone and both of you being able to look at the same thing at the same time, and point to and change things while you talk, just like being in the same room. In fact it is even better than being in the same room because two or more people looking at the same screen is not really comfortable.

The only problem is gotomeeting in expensive and clumsy. Try dimdim. Every project should have dimdim Pro for $19/mo.

Timebridge

2009-06-14T19:15:00.000-07:00

timebridge.com

Nozbe

2009-06-14T19:13:00.000-07:00

www.nozbe.com

Project Manager.com

2009-06-14T18:58:00.001-07:00

http://www.projectmanager.com/index.php

Google Docs

2009-04-26T17:52:00.001-07:00

Google Documents (and zoho documents for that matter) explained in a quick video.

Document Management

2009-04-26T17:50:00.000-07:00

I found this comment on a blog and really like it. A system for email subjects is needed also.

The only successful document control I've ever seen implemented was based around document reference identifiers. Every document (and piece of source code and email and so on) had a reference like this:

CO/PR/TY/00001/V

Where:

CO - company identifier (companies change names more often than you imagine)
PR - project identifier
TY - document type. There were about 200 different document types but most people only ever dealt with about 6 and we could remember those off by heart.
00001 - a "next-out number" taken from a big register kept for each project.
V - version number

The system was imple enough that it would work for paper as easily as electronic documents. People actually used because it was simple and they could immediately see the benenfits.

Forget to attach files to emails?

2009-03-31T07:01:00.000-07:00

http://lifehacker.com/5191938/reverse-your-email-writing-order-for-clear-messages

Online backup

2009-03-31T05:36:00.000-07:00

Many free online storage sites are available. I use box.net to save really important stuff, like my tax returns. You can also store pdf's on google docs. This from pcmag.com

MyOtherDrive is little more than online storage with scheduled uploads using a Java applet. Its sharing and photo viewing features will be useful to some, but for real, high-powered online backup features, look to Carbonite, Mozy, or SOS.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2344119,00.asp

Emailing large files

2009-03-29T05:49:00.000-07:00

I have just found out about a new way to do this: yousendit.com. I am excited about this because my architect is constantly having her file attachments returned as too large, even over 5MB come back to us. Please give it a try and let me know if you like it. I will try it this week and report back.

Web for CM Mission Statement

2009-03-29T05:43:00.000-07:00

This blog is to place significant, useful, and productive web tools in an indexed, easy to find place. My focus will be for busy, overworked, stressed out construction professionals, including management and field. I am one of those people and do this as a hobby (I know, that's pretty sick). So I welcome, and the purpose of a blog is for others to comment so I welcome new topics as well as tools.