TL: DR – Bridgit Bench is the first and only workforce planning platform to offer tools built specifically for planning preconstruction teams and tasks. Get your precon team out of spreadsheets and give them flexible task tracking and better visibility into the projects their people are working on, how they’re progressing, and how well their people are being utilized. Resource Planning for Precon is a premium module in Bridgit Bench. For more details, reach out to your account manager.
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Planning and tracking people working on preconstruction tasks is no joke
One of a preconstruction manager’s primary goals is to effectively triage the number of opportunities and projects that come in from your business development team. That means the initial assessment, feasibility, potential risk, and of course – whether or not there are enough people to help manage them all.
Without clear visibility of available people or the estimates, bids, and budgets that need to be done, it’s borderline impossible to know if there are enough people for the work, or on the flipside – if anyone is overloaded.
And that’s just dealing with projects and opportunities as they come in. That doesn’t even account for how agile the preconstruction process needs to be once it’s in flight. Tasks are shorter and constantly change, dates shift, and deliverables get pushed back or bumped up.
If your precon team doesn’t have a planning tool that’s as flexible as preconstruction itself (cough…spreadsheets), you could be leaving opportunities on the table.
Give your precon team planning tools built for them
The problem with a lot of workforce planning options in construction is their one-size-fits-all approach to building their software. What works for construction doesn’t always work for preconstruction.
Bench is the first and only workforce planning platform to offer a suite of workforce planning and task management tools exclusively for preconstruction teams. Resource Planning for Precon is even built into its own section in each project so that precon and project operations can be kept separate.
With workforce planning tools actually built for preconstruction, your team will have better visibility on the work that needs to be done, who’s doing it, and where there might be gaps in your pipeline.
Flexible task management
No two precon phases are exactly the same. Well… maybe a couple are… but across an entire project pipeline full of opportunities and new pursuit projects, there certainly is a need to be flexible with the tasks and deliverables from one project to the next.
That’s why Resource Planning for Precon in Bench provides flexible task management. Not only is it flexible, it’s fast and easy. How fast and easy? Just click to add a task, type in the task name (ex. Schematic Design), pick your dates and hit save. Done. You can add as many tasks as you need and Bench will display them in cascade style (or task-ade style… get it?) according to start dates.
Here’s how it looks in the project.
And this is how it’ll look in the Project Gantt.
Speaking of flexibility, did we mention that precon assignments will also be linked to tasks? That way, when schematic design deadlines change or construction documents get bumped back, your team’s assignments will automatically shift with the task. Speaking of assignments…
Easy task assignments
If you think creating tasks looks easy, imagine there was a list of available team members that you could just drag and drop onto your created tasks. If “too easy” exists, that’s probably what it would look like, right?
Well, precon task assignments might just be too easy then. With your roster of available people right in your precon tab, you can start dragging and dropping team members where ever they’re needed. They’ll even automatically assume the task dates. Easy.
You can also create unfilled roles on your precon tasks without assigning anyone. Then, when it’s time to fill the role, Bench Smart Suggestions will give a short list of available, best-fit team members.
A clear line of sight for effective planning
With precon team planning being housed in Bridgit Bench, your Preconstruction Leaders instantly gain full visibility of their people. That means what they’re working on, for how long, and how well they’re being utilized. The perfect trifecta for someone trying to triage the projects and opportunities coming in the door and if there’s the capacity to take them on.
The People Gantt alone will display each task, the respective projects, and the utilization rate for your entire precon team.
Workforce planning for your entire team
We built Bridgit Bench to help solve a real problem that costs contractors a lot of time and, in turn, a lot of money – workforce planning. We knew if we built something powerful (but easy to use) that can handle the needs of the most dynamic industry, we could help. So that’s what we did. We built the workforce planning platform that does exactly what construction expects, but with the flexibility to do what each contractor expects, too.
We’re happy to extend that flexibility and ease of use to preconstruction teams and are excited to continue working alongside our customers to create the best workforce planning experience for their entire team and hell… the world (of construction).
