Managing construction projects across Australia with Teamwork
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Ventura Home Group (VHG) is one of Australia’s largest home builders, winning multiple national awards for their projects. Since its founding in 1993, the family-owned company has grown significantly, and remains the second-highest volume builder in Western Australia. Each year the team builds more than 1,000 homes for customers including first homes, two-story family homes, and multi-site developments.
In this case study, Josh Nielsen, project manager for corporate services, details how Teamwork makes it possible for VHG to keep its team aligned and construction projects on track.
Getting held up
VHG has been building homes across Australia since 1993, but as the company grew, so did its need for a better solution for managing projects. The team was experiencing a lot of unnecessary delays because of time spent searching for project information that was spread across desktops, notebooks, and email. In addition, a growing employee base was making it more challenging to coordinate communication with teams based in different offices and construction sites across the country.
To help overcome the challenges they were facing, VHG chose Mavenlink, a popular project management software. However, when too many team members reported during a pilot deployment that the software was difficult to work, management decided they needed to find software that was a better fit.
" It was really important for us to give our client true and honest updates at every stage of the project. The software we used at the time wasn’t designed for collaborative work, so we started looking for better options."
Managing change
VHG’s search for better software began with in-depth research into solutions that other construction companies were recommending on review sites. After seeing that Teamwork had good ratings, the company decided to sign up for a trial.
" Even though we saw that Teamwork had excellent ratings on a number of review sites, the ultimate decider for us was trying the software out for ourselves and discovering how easy it was to use.
After a successful pilot run, VHG worked with an account manager from Teamwork to implement the software across the company in a rapid rollout. Within just a few weeks of being deployed, a number of teams at VHG were reporting the software was making it easier to collaborate with colleagues in different locations and departments.
One feature that has significantly improved VHG’s process is the Gantt chart view within Teamwork. This feature provides management with a visual overview of the milestones and tasks that need to be completed – a key requirement to keep projects moving forward.
“Change is inevitable when it comes to managing large construction projects. Gantt view in Teamwork gives us the ability to manage change more effectively and helps ensure that every job stays on budget and on schedule.”
Sharing information within Teamwork is also making it easier for VHG to partner with subcontractors who need direct access to information on projects they’re working on. Using Teamwork’s privacy and permission settings, VHG can share specific information with these external vendors without revealing private project details.
“We finally have one platform that we can use to share important details about each project without shuffling paper or sending a bunch of documents in separate emails. Now everyone signs into Teamwork and has exactly the information they need.”
Real-time progress
Teamwork has transformed the way management at VHG assesses progress on each project and communicates with their teams. Now they have the ability to analyze an entire project on one screen, review tasks and progress, and still keep upper management informed without looping them into every email thread. These features have reduced their workload – all while increasing transparency and accountability among each of their autonomous teams.
“With Teamwork, we know that we’re looking at real-time information on every one of our projects, which is paramount for us with so many employees and subcontractors working in different locations.”
Teamwork also ensures information privacy for VHG as the platform provides secure access through single sign-on. This one-step process allows administrators to implement secure password authentication while providing every member of the team at VHG with ease of access.
Teamwork is now essential to VHG’s process for planning and managing each of their construction projects. The software also helps ensure that as the company’s employee base expands, every team stays aligned and informed.
" Teamwork is the central hub for organizing the enormous amount of data that flows in and out of each of our construction projects. It gives our entire team immediate visibility into progress milestones — which is crucial for hitting budget and time targets with every project we take on.
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