ᐅ Software for Project Planning and Tracking in Residential Construction

Tassimat schrieb:

You don’t want to allow more access than that. Otherwise, workers might manipulate or delete data,

By the way, this is one of the biggest drawbacks of the much-praised Excel. As the saying goes: If all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. It’s simply not suitable for this purpose. Period. If someone insists on using it as a simple notepad, fine, but that doesn’t make it a project management tool, and that’s what was asked for here.

I put miro into the ring.
Basically, it’s an online whiteboard.
With tasks, you can also replicate the basic functions of something like Trello.

Even the free version is quite usable for this kind of application.

K1300S schrieb:

If you want truly efficient project management, I would stay away from Excel & similar tools. [...] I would definitely opt for an (online) project management tool like Monday, Asana, Trello, Meistertask, and so on.

As much as I share your lack of enthusiasm for these popular semi-professional tools favored by shortcuts users, all that online stuff has two major drawbacks. First, their design expects all participants, regardless of permission levels, to engage exclusively online with the documents. Unfortunately, due to this exclusivity, the file formats are often incompatible with other systems. So you have to register with the platform and cannot use the files through a "competing platform." Messaging and groupware solutions also have this limitation—just imagine if phone calls only worked within the same provider; for example, I could only talk to my aunt who is with Vodafone but not my mother who uses Telekom. The only real export option is often printing (to paper or PDF). Second, this lack of interoperability between similar systems from different providers limits who can participate. I’m not going to clutter my home screens with dozens of unified messengers. I already have two (and WhatsApp is not included—simply because I don’t want to know what the Zalando-Prosecco crowd among my acquaintances is feeding their cats today). Potential clients who want me to adopt a third such channel will have to manage without me. I expect it’s much the same for good craftsmen; most of them tend to be about as conservative as I am.

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https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/

Most tools of this kind even allow exporting data to Excel and similar formats, but of course, the effectiveness of the solution depends on everyone using it equally. This is no different from Excel, PDF, etc., except that those have a wider adoption—along with a growing number of third-party tools, although some still offer questionable compatibility. I am not aware of any open standard for storing project metadata, but even if such a standard existed, there would need to be multiple compatible clients to allow each employee to use THEIR preferred tool. With Excel, no one asks about individual preferences. 😀

Ultimately, Excel is probably so popular because it represents the lowest common denominator, but for me, that denominator is definitely too limited to manage projects properly. Of course, if expectations are lower, the appeal of a specialized solution decreases, but that doesn’t make it any less valuable.

K1300S schrieb:

But of course, the solution only works if everyone uses it equally.

Again, who else besides the homeowners should use this? The master tradesperson who asked me whether I want the offer by mail or fax? The contractors who always say, "I need to ask the boss / you have to discuss that with the boss"? The many tradespeople whose writing you can’t tell apart from that of a primary school child?

Or am I supposed to create colorful reports about how many tickets I have processed for my own house-building project? Sorry, but I don’t see much added value there. And yes, I use these kinds of tools extensively in my professional work. And it only works because real teams with more than two people use them, where everyone can be required to use the system.

At the end of the day, it’s just about keeping track of a large to-do list. Whether you arrange it on colorful boards, assign deadlines, link dependencies, and so on is mostly just playing around. For house building, what you need can be done with the basic functions of any common tool.

During the planning phase, I calculated the financials using Excel, as I am very comfortable with it. Later, when the invoices arrived and things often looked different from the original plan due to various additional requests, I no longer enjoyed that process. Instead, I enjoyed working with the Ninox database and created a convenient filing archive. The carpenter handled the schedule and technical construction coordination, and I had access to it. That was very convenient.

The most important factors are communication and binding agreements. Speak directly and document everything in writing—personal meetings, phone calls, and emails.

Today, I would probably rely heavily on Teams.