Someone recently shared a story with me from The New York Times titled Back to School? Bring Your Own Toilet Paper. School systems all over the country are strapped for cash.  As a result, some schools require students to bring their own toilet paper, soap, plastic cutlery . . . even garbage bags.
 
I’m sorry but this makes me crazy.  There is a real and immediate opportunity to reduce the cost of school renovation and new construction by using a construction management system so that money could be used elsewhere.  Saving 1-2% on a five, ten or 100 Million dollar capital program is a lot of money.  Put another way, with that money, you could buy a lot of toilet paper.

Some school construction programs are managed extremely well.  But many programs have room for improvement resulting in ‘found money’ without impacting the scope of the projects.  The key to successful and efficient project management is (1) good people and (2) good process. 

One example of good people and good process helped by technology is the West Lynn-Wilsonville School District in Oregon. Recently they launched a 4-year, $98 million bond program to address the growing population needs. The team of 4 project managers was tasked with managing 50 concurrent projects. However, managing these projects was already a challenge without the new demands of the new bond program.

The project management team needed to reduce the time and effort spent tracking, documenting, and reporting project data without increasing headcount. The use of multiple systems to control cost data across the entire bond program also posed risks in terms of data integrity and accuracy. The process of capturing this information was so complex that when stakeholders needed information to assess the program’s status, the reports were rendered unreliable due to the number of steps required to compile the data and generate reports. On one occasion, bad information led to a cost overrun.  In addition, the team sought efficiency increases that would give them more time to engage project stakeholders during planning and design and ensure all of the owner project requirements were captured.

Their director was proactive, and knew there was a way they could save their school district money by avoiding cost overruns. This money could then be used to buy new books, materials, or whatever was needed to provide a quality education. He also knew they could enhance their team's ability to manage their capital projects while making their jobs easier.

Construction management software provides ‘good people’ with a way to adhere to and enforce their ‘good process’ resulting in a well executed program, but it is not a substitute for good people or good process.