Practice Management Member Conversations

This message has been cross posted to the following Discussion Forums: Small Firm Round Table and Practice Management Member Conversations .
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I've recently joined a 7-person firm that might be ready to leap into more sophisticated and effective practice management software tools. I'm interested in knowing what you all are using for the following and how well they work for you:

1. A project tracking/reporting tool linked to a project database with a dashboard that informs all team members of projects coming in the future; status, deadlines and progress toward target budgets/profits for projects currently in design and production (and more importantly, schedule changes); status of projects in permitting, bidding, construction and close-out phases. (I've used Microsoft Project for some of these functions in the past, but that software is now priced out of reach.)

2. A planning tool that can help us forecast workforce needs. (I believe Microsoft Project can help with this function, but that software is now priced out of reach.)

3. A cartoon set planning tool that can be used from design through bidding to plan out the drawings to be created, support assignment of drawing tasks, support project changes and track completion.

Are you using this kind of software? Did you create your own, buy something ready-made or adapt something designed for other purposes (such as contracting firms or CADD/BIM)? Does the data reside on the office server or on the cloud for access by consultants or by firm team members in the field?

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Sean Catherall, AIA
Dave Robinson Architects
Salt Lake City, Utah
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I'd suggest taking a look at Kidasa's "Milestones Professional" program for your items #1 and #2.  Note that there is a low-cost or free reader that lets others look at the schedules.  You can assign resources to tasks.  Affordable.

Milestones also lets you craft "presentation" schedules which look good and summarize information clearly.  Plus, can import/export to Project for the times when you need to do that.  Take a look at their website for various examples of others' schedules.

[ On the other hand, a whiteboard for the overall office, and three-week look-ahead schedules - perhaps created in Excell with Xs in boxes - might work as well.]

For the funnybooks, perhaps a pdf master, and one of the low-cost pdf annotation programs [find one you like, and use it for shop drawing/submittal markups, too] would get you where you need to be.  Create masters for various drawing sizes.  As progress occurs on the drawings, re-plot to pdf.  May need to do some thinking for just how to transfer notes from one generation to another.  Standardize on colors so you'll know, during construction, which are the active changes, and which are the ones just being talked about.

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Joel Niemi AIA
Principal
Snohomish WA
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