Dennis recently blogged about how RFI’s are similar to blood cells, in part because of how important the proper, healthy circulation of information is to the life of every project.

Yet he and I also have threads going about the problems caused by disorganized data.  It occurred to me that these two topics intersect. Yes, it is incredibly important that RFIs circulate freely and correctly.  But it is just as important that you have clear, precise information about when that RFI circulated and to whom.

Not only does software like the Spitfire Project Management System track to whom something was sent to and when, it also tracks each file as it changes over time and remembers which version of that file was sent to each person. Automatically. When our web download wizard is used to obtain the RFI attachments, we can also show exactly if and when the files were retrieved.

With a state-of-the-art project management system like Spitfire, you actually have more data about your project than you did in the past–but the critical thing is that information is organized perfectly (in this example, all accessible from the RFI itself).  Forever.  Isn’t that also part of the healthy circulation of information?

As the forest of information grows and becomes more dense, finding the right piece of information–and  specifically to whom it was accessible when–can be of incredible value.

How healthy is your forest of information?  Can you find the details you need on demand? If the answer is no, consider a project management system such as Spitfire.