Defying a recession: Firm reaps 200% productivity gain from project management

Projects@Work recently ran a story about the Abbey Road Group, a land development firm that implemented a project management solution to streamline project and administrative efficiency. What they experienced was a productivity gain of 200 percent since January 2008, when the real estate market was headed south.

After tiring of unorganized tools like Excel and Outlook, Abbey Road implemented an on-demand project management solution from Daptiv. The company began seeing immediate results, including increased clarity and communication among their staff of project managers and engineers.

Abbey Road pushed their improvements a step further by allowing their clients to access project information, increasing their visibility into project progress while equipping them with a forum to collaborate directly with developers.

Even more, the development firm selected the project management solution over other industry-specific (land development) tools because it was flexible enough to fit to the firm’s processes rather than requiring users to bend to a specific format.

Lesson learned:

• Use a hassle-free solution that is available on-demand
• Pick a tool flexible enough to adapt as your processes change and improve
• Choose project management software that can be pre-configured with your unique industry terminology so it’s instantly familiar to all users
• Reporting and collaboration are key! A client that is “bought in” because they know what is going on and have a hand in their own success, is a happy client that is more likely to be profitable and will return for more business.

Ultimately, Abbey Road found something that allowed them to streamline their reporting process and focus on the work they specialize in, rather than worrying about the in’s and out’s of project management software – all without sacrificing the features they needed in an enterprise-class solution.

Feel free to read the full article from Projects@Work (one of the Web’s best sources for project management resources and tools for professionals and training), highlighting Abbey Road’s project management implementation, and recommendations from their lessons learned throughout the process. Daptiv also has a case study on Abbey Road Group with additional details available here and you can follow Cassie Porcella, the company’s business manager, on Twitter – ask her how they are doing!