"Does BuildIT have a Critical Path?" — we're often asked that question.  First, some background:

Critical Path (also known as Critical Path Method, or CPM) is a scheduling method for dealing with multiple activities (or "tasks" as we call them) required to complete a project. The duration of the project is the sum of sequential tasks, with each task having it's own duration.

The relationship between tasks is such that a change in a critical task will most likely change the overall construction timeline, either shrinking it, or extending it. I say "most likely" because in construction, scheduling tends to be more of an art than a science, and often there are negotiated activities that take place to ensure the project is kept "on track", like doubling up of trades, working on non-working days, and working longer hours in the day.

CPM is taught at the university level as part of construction project management. Tonnes of books are written on it. Thick ones, expensive ones. There is a Project Management Institute that teaches and certifies project managers. There is a science behind CPM, and some big words /phrases that come along for the ride:

• predecessors/successors
• resource levelling
• sequential dependencies / linked tasks
• float
• crashing / fast tracking

BuildIT made the decision years ago to provide a better solution to small to mid sized construction professionals, many of whom are artisans, business owners, and do too much without enough hours in the day. We saw the landscape of software available to this audience, and quite frankly, it was way too complicated and costly for the majority of the folks we had interviewed, and continue to speak to on a daily basis.

There is not a week that goes by that we don't hear from someone that "we tried software X for scheduling, and it was way more than what we needed". How can that be if it had all the bells, whistles, buzz words, fancy computer algorithms and a printed Gantt chart that would make any Ph.D. drool!?

There is enough complicated, complex, "enterprise level" software out there for those of you that need it. Call me and I'll make some recommendations if you feel you need more than what we offer.  One project manager quipped that "you could run a small country with [Microsoft Project]" – but that's not what our customers are up to!

The fact is, we wanted to offer a simpler scheduling solution that gets the job done without a bunch of overhead.

Consider a simple schedule with a dozen or more tasks. All tasks are displayed in chronological order based on start date. That's how most of you would view a schedule.

Now say that something happens which affects the schedule. There is a delay in a shipment, the crane broke down, someone forgot to show up on Monday, AND you forgot your wife's birthday – all throwing a wrench into the system.

You have some options:

1. Modify one task, independent of the rest of the schedule

2. Modify a selection of tasks, independent of the rest of the schedule

or what I refer to as our Critical Path option:

3. Select a task, extend or reduce its duration, and choose a function to change ALL SUBSEQUENT tasks by the same number of working days.

Presto, you essentially are saying that the entire schedule from that point forward is "critical", and all tasks are bumped (accounting for non working days such as weekends and stat holidays).

There are also other strategies for effectively managing critical paths within a BuildIT schedule.

For instance, say you had 100 tasks for a project, and 70 of them were critical (the other 30 were there, placed appropriately in the timeline, but were not tied to the critical path in any way). You can assigned those tasks a CRITICAL code, then just filter on that code to view the critical path, and adjust as necessary.

For more help with how to use BuildIT to accomplish your scheduling goals without the nightmare of task linkages, sequential dependencies and arrows all over the page, call BuildIT support.

Scott Hutchinson (putting the "simple" into scheduling)
scott@builditsystems.com
1 866 585 5050 ext 1

If you're a construction professional, and you're using Outlook for email, this article is for you, big time. 

I admit it. I was an Outlook user ("was" being the operative word). 

Then it happened.

I won the "bad sector on hard drive" lottery, and my Outlook email file was gone forever, along with a few critical files on my hard drive. Essentially my hard drive packed it in, and I lost all my personal email.

Bummer. I was ticked. Like the girl in the photo (BTW, she's not related to me, and she doesn't work for BuildIT).

For you non techies, a hard drive is that part of your computer that stores your files, the stuff you create with applications like Word, Excel... important documents, contracts, photos, templates that you've spent hours creating. Over time, the magnetic surface of a hard drive can deteriorate, wreaking havoc for those like me who use computers as a tool only, and aren't at home "under the hood" doing surgery on our own PC's.

The computer fix-it guys told me it happens all the time. People come in to their store desperate to retrieve their files off a broken computer. People in tears, like the lady who lost all her wedding photos, a problem some us that grew up with a 35mm camera and bulky photo albums never had to deal with. They said it's best to just get a new hard drive and start all over again.

For those who are fortunate to have some or all of their data retrievable, that process can take hours... and it comes at a cost. Depending on the severity, data recovery can be in the $1000's for some individuals/companies.

Now for the good news - since I work for BuildIT, I have my own BuildIT account, with email and file storage. All my email, contacts, and files that I had uploaded over the years to the system were safe, accessible, ready and waiting for me. This whole event just further reinforced my opinion of web based systems - they are, as Gretzky said, "where the puck is going". They're the smart choice for construction professionals who want to sleep easier at night, not having to worry about doing data backups or hard drives crashing.

Just imagine if you are one of the lucky ones who is on board with BuildIT. You're computer crashes, falls off the hood of your truck, or worse yet, gets stolen. What do you do? Just jump on to another computer, log on to BuildIT and you're back in biz... literally, within minutes. 

Now, what's that worth to you? I'd say that's worth the price of admission right there. So if you're checking out construction software, and they're offering you a "download" or a box with some disks in it, well, I hope you have a good back up plan in place. Otherwise, take door number 2 and give BuildIT a shot at solving your problems.

Want to learn more about the advantages of web based systems for construction? Click here.

Or give me a call, and I'll share some more tales from the front lines, and what you can do to avoid the pain.

Scott Hutchinson
scott@builditsystems.com
1 866 585 5050 ext 1