Quarterbacking the Evaluation, Selection, and Deployment of a Project Management Software System

GEORGIA T. LOADHOLT: Hi, everyone. Welcome to "Quarterbacking the Evaluation, Selection, and Deployment of a Project Management Software." My name is Georgia Loadholt, and I'm so excited that you have decided to tune in.

Here you'll see the safe harbor statement. The forward-looking statements made in these presentations are being made as of this time and date of the live presentation. I'll leave this up just for a second for you all to briefly look over.

Like I said, my name is Georgia Loadholt. I work for Clancy & Theys Construction Company. I'm an Operations Analyst based in our Raleigh, North Carolina location. I've been with Clancy for about a year and a half, as well as having four years in the industry. I'm a proud graduate of Clemson University. I got my undergrad in financial management and then got my master's in construction science and management. I just tell people that I'm passionate about solving today's construction industry challenges with tomorrow's technological advancements and business strategies.

So I was at Clemson. I became a really big football fan. Fun fact, we were undefeated at home and won two national championships while I was a student. And so that kind of Fed my passion for football on. And I quickly got really big into the NFL once Clemson football players really started to take a strong hold in the NFL.

So one of my goals is to attend every NFL stadium. And you can see the couple places I've been so far. I think sports have been a huge part of my life. I grew up playing golf. And when given the opportunity to kind of quarterback this process of selecting a PM software at Clancy, when they put it into football terms and started talking about a team and what that would look like, it was an easy yes for me. So we're going to use [AUDIO OUT] references moving forward. Yeah.

A little bit about Clancy before we jump in. We have six locations in the Southeast. We're headquartered out of Raleigh, North Carolina, which is where I sit. We are a 75-year-old privately held firm, excited to be celebrating our 75th anniversary this year. We have about 450 employees company wide throughout the Southeast, do about $1 billion in construction across the Southeast as well.

All right. So what are we talking about today. So here's our agenda. We're going to do a quick film study. We're going to see how Clancy & Theys IT has developed over the years and what led us to be in the position we were in to select a project management software. We're going to talk about the business problems we are solving for.

Like I said, a lot of football references-- we're going to hit a game plan, with phase one being setting the enterprise. Phase two is the framework, phase three data collection. Phase four is evaluation and validation period. Then we'll talk about our path forward, what life has looked like at Clancy since we selected our project management software. And then we'll jump into all the lessons learned for you all to have some takeaways.

Learning objectives. So be able to apply the presented plan to evaluate, select, and deploy the right project management software for your company. At the end of this, you should be able to identify the key functions of project management software and determine which are the most important to your company. And then lastly, you should be able to walk away knowing how to manage an evaluation, selection, and deployment process, focusing on the resources that you need to be successful.

All right. Where did we start at? So in 2007, we implemented our first ever Building Information Modeling department, and so formerly known as BIM or VDC, came and joined our team in 2007. The significance of having a BIM department was they really started taking advantage of Zoom meetings and meeting virtually, some different cloud-based software that we haven't used before in the company. They kind of started to open the door for cloud-based solutions and moving the company in a more advanced technology route.

In 2011, we implemented Vela Systems. This was the first time-- at the time, we had five divisions were operating off of one software platform. So I think that was really significant. Previously, we had kind of all been operating off of different platforms. And Vela Systems was the first stab at getting us all on one system.

In 2013, we hired a third-party CIO known as the Scarlett Group. And they reviewed and advised on all of these IT systems and processes. One of the things that came from that was an initiative to search and evaluate an ERP-- Enterprise Resource Planning-- software. So we began that search in 2013. In 2015, after a couple of years of looking we implemented Viewpoint Vista to modernize our accounting system and also use it as a way for a project management solution.

So Viewpoint was never officially rolled out as the project management software we would be using. It had a lot of great opportunities and tools for our teams to use, and some of them did decide to take advantage of that, but not all of them. So in 2023, we knew that it was time to officially adopt a corporate project management software. Needless to say, Viewpoint is great as an accounting system, great for our ERP. They are still our accounting system. We still use them. But the project management tools did not develop. As we continue to grow, they weren't able to grow with our company. So that's what led us into a PM software.

All right. So I feel like since I'm from North Carolina, I can kind of take a jab at the Panthers. But I saw this picture from last season. And if you'll notice-- you can look to the right-- you've got two Panthers players blocking each other.

And prior to leading the project management software search, this is what kind of our systems here at Clancy & Theys looked like. They weren't integrated. They weren't working together. We could say they were not on the same team with the same initiative and same goal. We had a lot of different systems, a lot of double data entry because these systems were not talking together.

So if your IT looks anywhere like this, if your technology stack maybe resembles this, hopefully you can take away a few points today to get everybody on the same page. That was our goal of really going into a project management search, was to get our softwares on the same page, get them working together, and get them working towards one common goal. So it's really unfortunate here. Hopefully they can turn it around, but we'll see what happens.

As I mentioned, business problems we are solving for-- technology sprawl, a lot of inefficiencies. Our systems weren't talking together. We had an inner data in multiple places. We had a lot of fragmented processes. You would do one task in one software, move to another software and do it again.

That led to a lot of inefficiencies, have a lot of softwares in our tech stack that might do the same thing or might not do any of the same things but need to share information and they were not talking to each other. And then lastly, we were looking for a cloud-based software that could be scalable. We use Viewpoint Vista on premise. It's not cloud based currently. So as we continue to grow, we knew that we needed a software that would grow with us.

Like I said, our game plan-- so let's start off. We're going to start off by setting the enterprise. Then we'll jump to the framework, the data collection, and then lastly, evaluation and validation. All right. So we had our end goal in mind. Our deliverable was to select a project management software.

That can be a really big task. And identifying where to start is really important. So we started with our people. I think people are the most important piece and element to technology and the technology adoptment within your company. So we started by surveying our employees.

We sent 311 surveys out to every representative from all of our departments, from field to project managers, to accounting, to preconstruction. We covered them all, mainly because the project management software touches every department in some shape or form. We're really proud to say we had an 89% response rate, which just goes to prove, hey, talk to your people. They probably have something to say, and they probably want to be heard, especially when it comes to something they're going to use every single day and impact their work life that much.

So a couple of survey questions that we had on the list to be answered, covered quantitative time engagement with software and processes. How much time do you spend doing certain tasks? How much time do you spend using certain pieces of software every day? Challenges and successes with current software and processes, this was to help us get a gauge of what people liked, what they didn't like, maybe what was missing or what they're looking for from a software.

And then lastly, hey, what are some daily challenges that you face day to day in your job-- and be really specific here-- that a project management software could address? I got some really unique answers there, so make sure you're super clear on, hey, what challenges can be addressed by a project management solution?

Here are our survey results. So a couple things that really stood out that I wanted to share with you all, it was really important to all of our teams for all of their workflows to be one software. That's safety, that's preconstruction, that is cost management, daily logs, viewing the model from VDC, having one place to go and grab all of that information. Like I said, all safety being in the PM software, super high up on the list of importance there as well.

Couple key challenges that were a trend across all of the survey responses from all of our divisions-- collect data in a meaningful way that can be leveraged across multiple platforms. So we know our future is data analytics. What are we doing now, and can we identify a project management software that will help us collect that data, store that data, and reflect that data into dashboards for business intelligence? And then lastly, something we lacked was external collaboration. So how can we get owners and architects and key stakeholders involved in the platform that we move to?

Key challenges here, again-- data silos. we're using different software, which means our data is being stored in different places. Document management, training. Got a lot of survey responses saying, hey, I like the software, but maybe I'm not as trained up as I should be, so I don't know how to use it the appropriate way. Maybe the challenges I have with the software could be addressed via training.

Interoperability-- think back to the picture I showed of the Panthers players. Our software was not working together, kind of working against each other in a lot of ways because it caused double data entry, inefficiencies. Business intelligence-- like I just spoke on, we want to be able to collect data, reflect it in meaningful ways, kind of get what we're putting in, pull it back out. And then collaboration, all hands on deck, wanted a software that everyone could be fully involved in.

So we've identified here are the things. We've listened to our people. And what was next on the list was to create a software shortlist. There are tons of project management software out there on the market. So what I did was I took the 22 project management software options that were identified in the survey. We had a question that said, hey, have you ever used any other project management software? If so, please list the name, whether you were with a different company and used the software there, or maybe you represented an owner and used the software there. Any type of software experience, list the name of the platform.

We pulled together a list of 22. I conducted preliminary research on each platform. What that really looked like was me kind of just calling the company, getting a brief demo. We had initial gate criteria. We wanted it to be a general contractor platform. Some construction project management solutions out there are owner specific or probably would work better for trade partners. So we're looking for something that was scalable for and comparable for a company to use that's our size.

We wanted features above industry standards. There are a couple tasks and tools we were looking for to be a little bit more built out and robust. One of those would be a model viewer, the cost management aspect. And then, like I said, the scalability of the software-- can it grow with our company? How big is the software company? Are they actively doing R&D and growing their product? So kind of met with a bunch of companies, met with all 22 of them, kind of took this gate criteria, and figured out who would make it through, narrowed the list down to three.

All right. So we've listened to our people. We've identified the three softwares we want to take a deep dive into. And then let's get together a team. You need a team comprised of every department. So I will say we had a large team for this initiative. We had a committee that was comprised of 19 voting members. So those would be project managers, superintendents, people from our preconstruction team, accounting. And we also had 12 nonvoting committee members, leadership-- actually, accounting was nonvoting, my bad-- and our teams.

Expectations for the team and for the committee-- attendance at monthly committee meetings, attendance at in-person software presentations and demonstrations. And their final deliverable was a recommendation for the project management software that we selected.

So we've got these guidelines in place. We're working on recruiting the team. Here are the things we were looking for in our team. Every department and role interacts with the software needs to be represented, every division represented. We want to make sure we have project managers and superintendents that had a variety of work and represented different market sectors we did work in.

Industry experts, we preferred for them to be with Clancy for at least six months, preferably a year. And they need the time to commit to the search. And then we also just wanted to make sure we had a fair and balanced committee. If you had used the previous software in the past, you can be on the team, but make sure we balance you with someone that maybe hadn't used the software to balance out those views that you have as well.

All right. Jumping into phase two, framework. Request for proposal-- so we released an RFP. We analyzed survey data to identify 21 evaluation criteria. Committee members got together and drafted the RFP and a weighted average matrix. RFP was sent to all three shortlisted companies. And it covered the background purpose, key objectives, included our weighted average matrix. And we also included some criteria in addition to the 21 that would be scored, unscored criteria that included pricing, business, and company fit, roadmap, and security, which our IT team helped us put together.

Weighted average matrix-- this is super important to do because everybody from your committee is going to have something that is more important to them and their role. For example, the safety guy on our committee, the most important piece of this software, to him, was safety reporting. Project manager, most important was probably cost management. So VDC, obviously, and the superintendent is looking for model viewing capabilities. So everybody has a different interest. So you want to make sure that you balance that.

We took our 21 criteria, gave each committee member 100 points and said, disperse these 100 points across all 21 but in the order that you feel is most important. And this is what we came up with. So cost management was at the top. Give you a second to look at that.

Here is an example from the RFP on submittals. So this is only five questions. I believe the submittal, final RFP, had about 15. But this is what-- when I say we developed questions for each criteria, this is what those looked like.

All right. Moving into phase three-- in-person presentations and demonstrations. So each software company came in for a full day in person. We brought all of our committee members to our Raleigh office. And the one directive I gave the software company says, hey, we don't want your out-of-box presentation. We want this to be specific to Clancy and phase. I will provide you with budgets, drawings, project documents, anything you need to make this presentation specific to our company.

I think there's a lot of power in sitting in a presentation and seeing a budget from your job that you did appear when they start talking about cost management module, and you can immediately relate. So I told the companies, hey, we'll provide you whatever you need, but we want to make sure this is tailored to our company.

Scoring-- so we had preliminary data evaluations. The committee scored each software based on the 21 evaluation criteria. And they ranked each criteria 1 to 5. You can see what the 1 through 5 mean, 1 being not suitable with no roadmap, 5 being best in class. So they gave a 1 through 5 to each of the 21 criteria.

And we collected those scores at the end of the presentations. And we decided to remove the lowest scoring project management software. We knew we had a ton of evaluation and validation left to go. And the lowest ranking software was significantly lower than the top two, and the committee voted that they were comfortable only evaluating the top two.

Phase four, evaluation and validation. So you think, wow, they made it through presentations. Great, they're done. We weren't. We were very far from being done. That kickstarted our evaluation and validation process and phase. Like I said, we removed one, the lowest scoring software, from the pool. And we're left with two, which allowed us to take deep dives with the final two.

So during the evaluation period, we gained access into both software platforms so that committee members could log in and play around in the software, have hands-on experience and test different workflows that they learned. Then we also took time to expand our understanding of cost management, safety, implementation, pricing, roadmap, and security.

So like I said, cost management was at the top of our list. We knew that was of utmost importance, so we wanted to take enough time to significantly vet and evaluate the software. When I say we were looking at cost management, we were also looking at how the software integrated with our ERP system. This is our goal, as outlined in the survey, to get all workflows in one software. In order to do that, we have to make sure that when our project managers use the cost management module, that this information is shared and sent over directly to Vista.

Pricing, you'll see noted that this-- we had a lot of further conversations that did not include the voting committee. We had over 40 internal and external meetings to continue to take a deep dive into these specific bullets and what each software could offer here.

One of the most impactful steps in this whole process-- and if you don't take anything from the call, I hope that you all take this away-- one, listen to your people, but two, listen to other people. We had reference calls, and they served as our main source of validation. We spoke with five general contractors. And funny enough, I think they had also narrowed down their software search to the same final two companies that we had. So regardless of where they landed, they talked to both of the same companies we did, which was really helpful to compare and contrast and hear their experience.

But do reference calls. They're so important. Make sure they are with a comparable contractor that's your size. It doesn't help to talk to a company that's smaller than yours or way bigger than yours. Really try to make sure you all align. That will help you have the same basis for discussion and understanding and use cases. So spoke with five general contractors, had multiple meanings, so some of them, really helpful. I will say it now, I will be more than happy to serve as a reference call. We took so much value from this.

Then management met to select the project management software. So we had our validation calls. We put together our final thoughts. And we created-- the committee created a proposal of here's where we landed and this is what we're looking for and this is our recommendation, and submitted that to management.

We did land with Autodesk Construction Cloud. And one of the reasons that we selected Autodesk was because of this priority to have all workflows in one system. Autodesk Construction Cloud will host data from cradle to grave from preconstruction all the way to close out. They also won us over with the standardization workshops that they would help us do once we selected the software, which I'll talk about in just a minute.

And then lastly, the biggest thing with Autodesk as well was interoperability, their ability to work with our other systems. Their Vista integration was unmatched. It allowed us to be flexible, to customize Vista, to customize the cost management software. That module operated faster and more efficiently. We were really pleased with their mobile app and the ability to get information out in the field. Cloud based, and then automated workflows-- we just were really impressed with the way that you can share information within the system, you can collaborate with internal and external collaborators, and just the workflows that this system allows us to integrate.

Couple last things to consider-- flexibility of the software and the system. Scalability, we felt like Autodesk was going to grow with us. So that was a conversation we had of, hey, where do you see your company going? Here's kind of where we see our company going. Where do you see the software going? Felt like Autodesk was putting R&D in a lot of the right places that aligned with what we were looking for.

Cost-- obviously, this was kept to the nonvoting members, specifically leadership. Data capture and then security-- I like to say that if it didn't pass security standards, it would have been off the table day one. So that's really important when evaluating a project management software, especially if it is cloud based.

All right. So we selected Autodesk Construction Cloud. Where do we go from here? You're going to have a lot of excitement surrounding this selection. So make sure you take some time and make a plan. So we worked with Autodesk and developed an implementation and standardization plan. It lasted approximately six months. And we had a champion team that was different from our selection committee who engaged in standardization workshops. So Autodesk will assign you an implementation consultant. They will learn all about your company, all about your workflows, and help you blend and integrate your current workflows with the Autodesk software.

We also designated a software owner. So this was actually a takeaway that we had from a couple of reference calls, was project management software is very robust. It's continuing to grow. Your workflows change. You need someone who is responsible for the platform and who owns the platform. So we have an operations process manager, which is a dedicated individual tasked with ongoing enhancement of procedures within the project management software. He also is a trainer and responsible for educating users on Autodesk. And he works with teams, when new projects are brought on board, to configure each project in Autodesk.

Lastly, training-- onsite trainings, we had one onsite training in each division. I like to say that construction companies want tools and not ways. And this is what makes training important. It's a toy until they learn how to use it and it can become a tool. So make sure you take the time. We [? bought ?] extra onsite training days from Autodesk because it was that important to us. Get your teams in person, get your people there, and really have them sit down and learn all about the software.

And then lastly, the third thing I like to say about training and why it's so important is it creates user empowerment. If a user knows they can spend their time using the software instead of trying to learn, then they can innovate in other ways to use the software. I'd like to say I learned more about Autodesk Construction Cloud from the guys in the field, the project managers that are in it every single day.

And they're continuing to figure out ways that they can use Autodesk to better their work and make them more efficient. And so when they know the basis of how to use the platform, they can spend their time figuring out, hey, how can I use this in another way, or how can I use this better than just trying to figure out how to use it in general?

Last thing here, some lessons learned-- I can't iterate enough, it's about your people. People, process, technology. It's in that order for a reason. Involve your stakeholders early. Ensure their needs and concerns are met. That helps get buy-in.

And it begins from the top down. I'm really grateful that here at Clancy, we had a leadership and executive team that fully supported our initiative. They understood the need. They understood the goal. And we had great support from the top.

Process-- have a game plan. Hopefully, now you do. You can easily get derailed. You can go down a lot of rabbit holes. So have a game plan. Define clear requirements. Make sure you go in knowing exactly what you're looking for.

Evaluate multiple options. I think we did a really good job about this. There are a lot of options out there. I didn't know how many were out there until we got started. There are a lot. And they're all great in their own unique way. I think if there was one perfect platform out there, we wouldn't have gone through the project management search. They're all great and unique in their own way. You've got to pick one that meets your requirements.

And then plan for implementation and training. I know we got through the search process and were like, great, this is done, what's next? So until you implement and you train, you've kind of bought a toy. And once you train, it becomes a tool. So make sure that you have a plan for implementation and training. Autodesk is a great partner for implementation.

Lastly, technology-- it comes last for a reason. Consider the total cost of ownership. So project management softwares, you're probably well aware, they can cost a pretty penny. Where can you cut cost. So I sat down with our director of IT. And we said, all right, if we select Autodesk Construction Cloud, here are the places we can cut costs because we no longer need this platform because Autodesk covers the same, can do it as well.

So really sit down. And when you think about costs-- and this is one of the reasons we didn't share pricing with the committee, because there are so many moving factors that pertain to pricing. So I think look at it from a total cost of ownership. What platforms can we cut, what costs can we cut, what would be added on? And look at the big picture there.

And then lastly, focus on the capability of technology to connect your company with standardized workflows and software tools. So we use Autodesk Construction Cloud to go through and reevaluate some of our processes that we have been doing for years and challenge the process a little bit. Why are we doing what we're doing? And like I said, I think Autodesk and their team is great at helping you do this.

We had not had a cloud-based project management solution prior to selecting Autodesk. So a lot of our processes were in place to account for double data entry, or we had to do things in a roundabout way because we didn't have cloud-based systems that talked to each other in that shared data. So what steps can you-- or what processes can you make more efficient by using a cloud-based system? And Autodesk is there to help and support you with that.

And with that, I really appreciate y'all tuning in. Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn like I said. We learned a lot through this process, and I would be more than happy to help in any way we can. Thank you.