A Tribute to Jon Taffler

jon-2It doesn’t matter how much warning you have to prepare. All of us at Spitfire are mourning the death of Jon Taffler with great sorrow. Even though Jon sometimes granted me the title of “official company philosopher,” I am not sufficiently gifted with words to coax them to convey the magnitude of emptiness that results from losing a friend far too soon.  Our hearts ache in sympathy for his family and children at this terrible loss.

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More, More, More!

more construction workOne of my favorite things happened this week.   Clients who have been live on the Spitfire Project Management System for over three years contacted us because their company’s business needs are changing and they want to utilize more of the features and functionality in our system.  In their particular case, they had been operating mostly as Construction Management (CM) and this year have begun taking some jobs that put them into the role of General Contractor (GC).

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“Oops! I Didn’t Know!!”

collaboration teamHas this happened to you? Someone in a group meeting throws out an idea. You muse about it for the rest of the day, then do some work to make that idea happen. And then you find out that two other people are also working on it, each independently and unaware of your work. Or, perhaps worse, you find out that the other two people had a chat after the meeting and are collaborating on the work, duplicating or contradicting the work that you just spent hours on.

In any group endeavor, communication is key and collaboration just makes sense. This is particularly true in the construction industry. On a construction project, there are many decisions that need to be made, much work to be done, and often, changes to the work along the way. Everyone involved needs to know what is going on, what work is needed now, and who is responsible for it.

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