StreamFocus™ Blog

The Problem

My architectural firm began work on a large project with a team of 7 people, and we needed a way to manage the firm’s many tasks. We started using web based project management tools to organize our activities. At first, it seemed like a great tool. Tasks would be created and assigned, email reminders would automatically be sent, comments about the tasks could be made and viewed. In a short time, however, the quantity of open tasks became larger.

With a large project, the key is to always work on the top priority task. The web system provided no intelligent way to help determine what the highest priority task was. Entering deadlines for tasks is useful, but when a project-critical task is delayed because of an immediate deadline on a less important task, especially if the deadline is self-generated, the consequences can be dire for the success of the project. Task dependencies are also a nice tool, but again, someone has to spend time massaging these relationships on a daily/hourly basis with the currently available tools.

Our number of tasks became overwhelming. The only answer I could find was to actually have a new position created to focus on organizing these tasks, but then I would have to spend a great deal of time explaining how to prioritize in addition to the new person actually going through all these tasks to set priorities as they came up. In other words, the task management system slowed us down, added costs, and threatened the success of our project. Eventually, we threw up our hands and abandoned the web project management tool.

What We Need

The most important thing we need to know is: which of the many tasks that need to be done is the top priority. The other big issue is: what information do we need to have before starting on a task. We found that so many times tasks would be started and then have to be revised again (and again) later because information needed to complete the task was missing at the onset. This amounted to a great deal of lost time and productivity on the order of 30-40% of time spent working. Additionally, we needed to have the information necessary for the task available immediately while the task was being performed. Another 10-20% of time was lost looking for information for tasks.

For service companies such as my architectural firm, the material we work with is primarily information, and the processes are to a large extent mental. Managing this complexity seemed daunting, but the reward is to gain back the 50% of lost productivity and dramatically improve quality for our customers. This potential improvement in my firm was well worth finding an answer.

We needed a management system that allowed us to focus on the top priority task we needed to do, to focus on the exact information we needed to complete that task, and to not let us start a task until we had assembled all the necessary information and other processes to complete the task to avoid rework.

It was these problems that led to the development of StreamFocus, an on-demand project and action management application, with which we achieved a 50% productivity increase with better quality.

©2007 Organon Technologies LLC

Case Study: Architecture - Back to: 50% Productivity Increase with Better Quality?

How much time do you spend looking for relevant information when working on a project? For my information-intensive firm, a lot of time was spent looking for product brochures, the latest project prints, old project prints, the latest phone call information from the client, that beam redesign fax from the engineer, the latest email from the Planning Department with the new deadline, etc. It was overwhelming, especially when larger teams were trying to use the same information.

Contextual Focus

With the help of StreamFocus, our high-speed scanner, and scans converted to pdfs, all the information we need for any Action is immediately available. In looking at an Action view, all the relevant information is there including the ability to add information, such as phone call, emails, etc with the click of a button. We know who is working on that action currently and in the past. Additionally, when selecting an Action to view, StreamFocus shows the context to the Workflow and subproject the Action belongs to. This context focus is displayed highlighted at the top of the screen with the ability to move up or down the focus hierarchy changing the context of what is displayed in the various system views.

For example, if you are viewing the participants for the structural engineering coordination action within “13. Final Design”, the structural engineer and his staff as well as your staff interacting with the engineer will be displayed and all others who created or were conveyed information about the action. If you select up the hierarchy to the next subproject level, “Contract Documents”, all of the participants in all the information created and conveyed below that level will be displayed, and so on. A real-time view of all the relevant participants on a project is obtained by simply clicking on the Project name at the top “200701_Vincent”. This same contextual display is true for other views such as Information, Sessions, and in the case of Architecture and Engineering, Products and Keynotes.

Team Collaboration

In addition to the personal productivity gain contextual action information has given us, we have also gained dramatically in team collaboration. For example, at any given time I can see exactly which Action any other team members are working on. If a team member asks a question, with a click on their Action, I am presented with the same contextual Action view that they have so that I can quickly grasp their context, such as the latest call from the engineer or a sketch with a red-lined area of concern, and can answer quickly. This tool is as equally powerful when the team is in the same room or scattered about in different countries. The right information at the right time in the right quantity is a very powerful tool.

Back to: 50% Productivity Increase with Better Quality?

©2007 Organon Technologies LLC