How PATH Manages Deficiencies — 1st of 15 demos
PATH is a web-based real time platform to manage all the activities that occur during building design and construction. The demo below is from my iPhone—smartphones are often the most challenging environment for comprehensive applications. PATH works on any smartphone, tablet or laptop —Mac or PC.
So far PATH manages 15 different aspects of design and construction Actions, all those anticipated and emergent things you may see on any given project. My secret is….they are all so similar in their management that, other than the details of the Action itself and how they are immediately communicated to the design and construction team, they are all managed much the same. There’s been lots of “back of house” work in order to make the customer-facing elements of PATH simple and consistent.
A few other unique things about PATH:
· Each and every action, task, in fact any line item, includes a Knowledge Check—tick a box and your Subject Matter Experts are immediately advised their support is needed. This is huge for continuously improving your business and its quality management;
· Instruction is minimal as each task and action type includes its own work instructions. And every time you issue an action, it includes detailed instructions so that the recipient has all they need to respond;
· Clients, other Consultants and Contractors need no special instruction or login capabilities. They receive information, requests and assignments in their preferred email and on their preferred device(s);
· Back and forth project communication occurs between any combination of laptop, tablet or smartphone. Meanwhile PATH captures correspondence, including attachments of any kind, to your PATH project database, which you can access from whichever device you prefer. At project completion you have a complete project archive that may be backed up as an Excel spreadsheet, Google Sheets or a PDF.
There are four integrated components to PATH:
1. PATH-Works, the list of all the things to consider during design and construction. The basic project includes almost 400 tasks and activities in workflow order—design and construction are not simple! It’s easy to customize PATH to your different project types;
2. PATH-Actions, all of the planned and emergent things that happen on a project, such as submittal review, deficiencies, etc.
3. PATH-Tables, checklists that help with the execution of a PATH-Work; and
4. PATH-Pay, a payment certification module.
The richness of PATH will require several short videos such as this one to explain. I am starting with example PATH-Actions because they have been identified as most professionals’ biggest pain point in project management.
PATH is a platform for managing both design and construction in the age of immediacy. For more details about the construction administration parts of PATH, refer to my book, “An Architect’s Guide to Construction 2nd edition.”
PATH principles and most details work anywhere with North American style design and construction practice, including Canada, the US, the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand—pretty much anywhere in the world where design and construction proceeds in an orderly fashion.
I will be mounting additional examples of how PATH works over the next while on social media like this. If you think an inexpensive solution like PATH might help you in your practice, contact me by commenting to this post or emailing me at brian@PATHproject.ca. Fair warning—I don’t do Messenger much. Students will have free access to a fully functional sample project.