Priority Matrix is a software solution that enables teams to collaborate more effectively by providing a platform that centralizes project documents, action items, and communication all in one place.
This article is intended for managers in the construction industry who are looking for an effective solution for team collaboration. We’ll cover the basics of how Priority Matrix can help you:
- Consolidate project updates, including documents and action items
- Prevent important tasks from ‘slipping through the cracks’
- Save hours of time per week on emails and meetings
“In the construction industry, we have too many things that come in from the left field. Construction managers could use Priority Matrix to better manage daily priorities to work on relevant things.” —Tanmaya Kala, Construction PM, DPR
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More Effective Collaboration
When you get started with Priority Matrix, the first thing you will do is add the people that you directly work with to your Priority Matrix ‘team’. For the sake of this example, let’s imagine that you’re a construction manager at a firm like DPR. The people you’ll directly work with during this project might be:
- The project manager
- An assistant construction manager or project admin
- A site manager
- An in-house architect
After getting set up, you’ll see that you have a shared space to collaborate with each member of your team. I’ve also added a ‘general project’ space where information that every team member needs access to can be centralized. This means your team will have real-time visibility the moment a ‘fire’ needs to be put out, along with a go-to information source for important project resources.
In the screenshot above, the highlighted update is that, “material delivery is delayed”.
Not only does the full team gain visibility of this new update immediately, but Priority Matrix keeps track of both when the issue arose and was resolved so you can easily refer back in order to share information with project owners, for example.
Taking things one step further, Priority Matrix tracks the ‘history’ of each item entered into the system. This includes all messages sent in the in-app chat, changes to due dates, handoffs from one person to another, and just about anything else you can imagine.
Consolidate Action Items and Updates
Priority Matrix serves as a great platform to manage tasks by providing the capability to:
- Create new tasks at the touch of a button
- Quickly add information, like a due date or a file attachment
- Delegate the task to a team member
- Communicate regarding specific tasks using the in-app chat
This eradicates the time that team members usually need to spend digging through their email to find their action items for the day, and also prevents important action items from slipping through the crack, since high priority tasks are always presented front and center.
What’s more, when tasks are managed in Priority Matrix, simply opening the app provides a snapshot of team status across the board.
This comes in especially handy when it comes to running more efficient meetings. Hundreds of teams use their Priority Matrix dashboard as a daily or weekly meeting agenda. Then, when new action items are decided upon during the meeting, you can delegate them in real time, rather than sending out meeting minutes and hoping that relevant parties get the message.
Smoother Handoff of Documents
Finally, we know one huge part of managing construction projects is the passing of documents from one party to another, followed by revisions, approvals and the filing of those documents so that responsible parties can access them.
In Priority Matrix, each document can easily be attached to action items, or uploaded as individual items.
As described above, this action item can then be delegated to the responsible party, and a due date can be set to remind him or her to complete whatever is necessary. What’s more, each task has a space for conversation, where specifics can be discussed. I suggest using tags to separate RFIs from change orders and change orders from submittals. When you implement this system, it becomes extremely simple to filter and access exactly which documents you need.
Of course, many documents, especially those shared with outside parties, are passed along via email. Priority Matrix integrates with your email, so you can quickly forward emails (and their documents) into projects to be handled.
Working on Mobile
One of the best aspects of Priority Matrix, especially for those working directly with teams in the field, is the ability to use the app on iPad, iPhone, and Android devices. What’s more, it even works offline. For some of our clients in the industrial spaces who work on sites with connectivity challenges, this can make a world of difference.
Access projects from anywhere || Stay up to date on action items || Gain passive visibility without interference.
But wait, there’s more!
For the sake of simplicity, this article doesn’t cover everything Priority Matrix can do for your team. But, here are a few more stand-out feature’s we’d love to highlight. When you collaborate with your construction team using Priority Matrix, you can:
- Reduce the number of emails you send/receive from your team to zero (really, we did it ourselves)
- Keep projects private, or add as many team members as you want
- Integrate with web-based project management solutions
- Collaborate with 3rd parties who don’t use Priority Matrix
- Import your data from Excel spreadsheets
- Create easy-to-understand progress reports (below) for supervisors
