1. Overflowing emails

While emails are a great tool they are also a large burden on your time. How do you keep hundreds of emails about dozens of projects straight? Which ones need a response? Which ones go in what files? Is your productivity tool interfering with your project success?

20–30% of the business day is spent on email related activity — that’s 2–3 hours per day. Firms with project management systems spend minutes, not hours, on their emails each day.

2. Knowing where your project files are

Do you store your project drawings, correspondence files, submittals etc. in multiple locations? Are your files still stored physically and electronically for the same project? Is time being wasted working on an outdated version? Do you place as much priority on managing project files as you do project deadlines?

6 in 10 firms rely on network folders to manage projects, with inconsistent file structures, accidental deletion, drag-and-drop displacement hindering productivity and negatively impacting utilisation. Rather than waiting until the project is complete to start organising files, firms should be proactively managing projects throughout the entire project lifecycle.

3. Quickly finding critical project documents

Is it easy to find the right files when a client calls with a project related question or do you have to call them back after spending time searching for the correct information? Does this impact your firm and its reputation with clients? When someone new comes onto the project is it easy to find all the necessary information in order to meet the deadline? How much time are you wasting looking for those files?

It can take firms hours or days to track down the correct critical project information, wasting valuable resources and critical project time. By using project management, firms can find the correct drawings or documents, regardless of when a task was completed, in a matter of minutes.

4. Sharing and managing files internally and externally

Sharing files across the office, with another office or external teams can be difficult — especially design files as they are quite often huge. Is more time spent trying to share files than actually working on the project? Is it difficult to find the right platform that works for everyone and won’t bog down serves or incur expensive data storage? Is it easy for your teams to collaborate on the most current version of documents and drawings?

75% of firms believe sharing documents is the key to improving collaboration yet only 9% of firms have a single enterprise-wide collaboration system.

5. Capturing your intellectual property

One of your firm’s greatest assets is your intellectual property. Is your project information secure and protected? Can you easily find the documents you require during a dispute resolution? Do you have effective disaster recovery plans in place to protect your intellectual property? What information needs to be retained and for how long? Are you putting your business at risk with your project information management processes?