Category Archives: Construction Industry

Anything about the construction industry in general

Enough Features: Is It Easy Too?

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A slide in the new-user introduction to the Spitfire Project Management System home dashboard

Help for Newbies – Just in case

As recently as my last blog post, I repeated that we at Spitfire like to talk about the features and functionality of our Spitfire Project Management System. Every once in awhile though, someone says we talk about our features too much!  Or at least about too many of the system’s capabilities at one time.

Oh, we get the basic fact that our infrastructure isn’t what sells the system. That’s why we don’t often emphasize the cloud, or single instance storage, or the fact that we have over 700 configurable fields in the web application’s user interface. Even so, for some folks, once you’ve proven a certain level of functionality, they become saturated.

For such folks, it becomes much more about the user experience–and a large part of that is the impressions they get.  How easy is this system to use? So just as we pay attention to our users in order to know the features they need most, we also listen and pay very close attention to how people get their job done so that we can make that job easier with each version of our project management system.

User experience is subjective, but some of the things we try to keep tabs on include Continue reading →

Infrastructure and Happiness

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road workOh boy.  I have to admit to being perturbed this morning.  See, I’m a bit of road cyclist. I’ve traveled over 600 miles so far this season and there I was this morning on one of my favorite country roads and don’t you know that between last Friday morning and now they have torn up the road to prepare for resurfacing.  ARG!  And I should have expected it, because a week or two ago they were working on another of my routes. Having grown up in the big city, there is a large part of me that thinks these roads really didn’t need resurfacing for years yet.  But, left alone, roads deteriorate.  Or in the case of my particular path, increasing population density has made old specifications no longer adequate.  No matter the rationale, I’m forced to deal with a ruined ride and disruption for weeks to come.  These rides are supposed to reduce stress – but I found myself quite unhappy today.

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Keep an Eye on that Budget!

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bfaHaving an accurate budget for a construction project is a tricky business. During the early, estimating stage, a company wants to give an accurate representation of how much a project will cost, while adding some padding for the inevitable contingencies. Bid too high and you don’t get the job; bid too low and the project will surely go over budget very quickly, and you will gain a reputation of not being very good. Experienced contractors know how to come up with a good initial budget. Keeping an eye on that budget then becomes crucial during the life of the project.

Why do projects go over budget? There may be several reasons, but let’s focus on some of the most common.

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It Don’t Weigh Nothing and It Ain’t Moving…

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printingIt is going back about 26 years now since I had a conversation with a client of mine about why it was so hard to make the simplest change to the software that I was developing for him.  After all, he only wanted a few “little” things on the screen changed, so he couldn’t understand how it could be so difficult.

So, I started to explain to him about data and tables and memory variables, etc., none of which resonated with him.  He still didn’t see how it could possibly take so long to do so little.

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Simplicity vs. Functionality

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math-symbolsWhat I am about to say may sound very elementary at first; however, it warrants careful thought. It is often very difficult for those looking at project management solutions to decide what type of system they should look at and subsequently move to.

The fact that a system is being looked at in the first place is usually a result of trying (and failing) to solve problems that currently exist and are causing headaches. At first glance, it is usually easier to go with the simplest system that appears to fix the problems and deals with the limited issues “where it hurts the most.” The choice may also involve the general misconception that everyone can learn a simple system quicker and that it will quickly solve a few of the current problems (but only a few of them). Comparatively, in the medical world, this means to “treat the symptoms but not find the cure.”

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