Periodically check out the Harvard Business Review to sharpen my business thinking and got caught up in an article from Rosabeth Moss Kanter’ post on “Five Tips for Leading Campaigns for Change” the blog post It mentioned the importance of story telling and testimonials, and it struck me that this is something we haven’t really done much of here at TeamworkPM. I’m often on the phone to users or talking to them via email about the ways in which they use the system and how it’s helped them out in their businesses.
One of my challenges here at TeamworkPM is to help people understand how the ways in which they can use our technology to make their work life simpler, or to help stream line certain areas of their business. I’m always looking for better ways to get these point across.
So I have decided to listen to Rosabeths advice and let some of our client’s stories speak for themselves. I think by sharing how other companies use TeamworkPM on a day-to-day basis– that it will make it easier for you to envision ways that the software could potentially help your teams collaborate and gain efficiencies by working together online.
Walls is a construction company based here in Ireland that uses TeamworkPM. Like a lot of our clients, they began by testing the system out on a small project. When I spoke to John Boylan in Walls I asked him what they used TWPM for. " We use TeamworkPM to collaborate with Design Teams and Sub-contractor in the management of all the Construction Issue drawings and specifications on various projects. Historically we would have distributed the information by post or email. This was extremely time consuming and difficult to track. With TeamworkPM we can use a central location to store all the files and then give people access to the files in a controlled manner. This not only saves time, it enhances efficiency which in turn is contributing to a reduction in our overhead costs."
The system worked very well for their initial test project and they have now rolled the system out for one of their large construction projects. Walls are using TeamworkPM for the management of a new 15 million euro project. The main area in which Walls use the system is the file upload capabilities’ Project members can upload the plans for each area of the project online, which then notifies all the people involved. Each group can then view the plans or if they wish download and print the plans out.
Each user, depending on permissions, then has the ability to upload a new version of the plan as well having the ability to add comments to each file to communicate their views to all the parties involved in the project.This feature alone been a major advantage for the company as it;
· saves them the cost of printing out large construction plans.
· saves the time and cost of couriering the printed plans to all the people working on this project.
· speeds up the approval process of the plans can be accessed online 24/7
· improves the communication process. As soon as a new file/plan/document is uploaded the entire team is automatically notified by email and everyone has instant access to the same files.
On a project of this size, you can imagine that the time and money spent (printing, couriering, and waiting for approvals from multiple parties) when accumulated over time, this would be a substantial cost. The efficiency TeamworkPM provides helps Walls to focus on the bigger problems they have to deal with when working on a project of this size.