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c/construction-softwarewrenwilsonwrenwilson9d agoProlific Poster

My old foreman insisted on paper schedules for a $2M project and it blew up in our faces

We were starting a big apartment build in Austin, and my foreman, a guy with 30 years in, told me to ignore the project management software and stick with his wall of printed Gantt charts. He said 'software just complicates things, kid, trust the paper.' For the first month it was fine, but then we hit a concrete delay from the supplier. Updating all those charts by hand took half a day, and by the time we got new copies to the subs, two crews showed up on the wrong days. We lost almost a week of work and had to pay standby fees. I finally pushed the team onto the software, and seeing the schedule update for everyone in real time after that was a game changer. Has anyone else had to convince an old-school guy to switch, and how did you get them on board without a major screw-up?
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verab28
verab289d ago
Tell me about it. That paper wall is a monument to wasted time. I had a boss who fought digital schedules until a wrong printout sent the drywall guys home for three days. The trick is to show them the win BEFORE something breaks. I pulled up the live schedule on a tablet during the morning huddle when a change came in. Updated it right there in front of him. He grumbled but he saw the whole crew got the new plan instantly. Sometimes they just need to SEE the fix, not just hear about it.
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valwest
valwest9d ago
Yeah, showing them the win in real time is the only way to break through.
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