3 Best Practices for Implementing New Construction Estimating Software

If you are looking at construction estimating software that someone is selling you as an out-of-the-box ‘plug and play’ solution, be weary. 

Creating a construction cost database based on your line items and cost history takes a lot more time than simply downloading a few folders and signing into the cloud. 

DESTINI Estimator is a robust, full preconstruction workflow solution and we’re not gonna lie, implementing it isn’t such an easy feat. It takes time, commitment, collaboration, and dedication on both ends—ours and yours—for you to successfully implement DESTINI Estimator.  

Don’t worry, though, we got you! We have implementation down to an exact science and have teams dedicated solely to making sure your implementation goes smoothly. Our Services department works with you to develop a customized implementation and training plan that is included in your cost of the software. And we stay with you every step of the way and throughout the entirety of you being our partner.  

That being said, we sat down with Doug Maiden, a customer success specialist and our longest-term employee at Beck Tech and asked him his expert opinion on how to have a seamless software rollout. 

Here are Doug’s 3 Best Practices for Implementing New Preconstruction Software 

Establish a Champion

What is a champion? A champion is someone on your team who has an aptitude for technology, a passionate advocate for innovation and change, and sees the benefits of adopting new software.  

The champion’s mindset: You have to rethink how you’ve done it in the past. Will that way continue to serve you in the future? How do you want to be more efficient? Examine how the technology can do more for you. 

Doug says, “the challenge is that we have a day job.” You still need to do your day-to-day tasks but also keep the ball rolling by moving forward with adopting the new technology. The champion leads this ball, devotes time to keeping the implementation moving forward, and will rally the troops. 

The champion will head up a group of 6 to 8 team members who will work with the champion to build databases, communicate with IT and with Beck Technology, as well as internal stakeholders, and users of the software.  

We suggest picking a group of diverse individuals from junior to senior level who see a better way of doing things, are excited about technology, and want to push the new software to its limits.  

How do you pick this core group out? Doug suggests looking at those on your precon team who demonstrate technical abilities, who are excited about change, and who are frustrated with the current system.

This group, along with your champion are your ‘change agents’ and will meet once a week with Beck Technology to discuss your progress, address any challenges, and so you can get information from us on next steps.  

Pilot Project

The pilot project is a way to test drive DESTINI Estimator before rolling it out to the entire company. Doug says, “You only have one chance to get it right.” During the pilot project, you will use DESTINI Estimator to recreate a past project and will be a way to work with Beck Technology to refine and adjust your database and workflows before giving everyone access to the software.  

Communication

It is extremely important to communicate up and down the channels throughout your organization about the software roll-out, especially keeping IT in the loop. 

Change is difficult and new technology can be frustrating for the simple fact that we don’t know how to use it and that is different than what we know now, so getting buy-in from everyone will aid in your success. 

Doug says “stimulate enthusiasm” for the product by telling everyone the benefits of the new software, about how it is going to make everyone more efficient, how you’ll collectively make better project decisions, and help the company’s bottom line.  

We also suggest appointing a point of contact in your company’s IT department. They are imperative in helping make implementation go smoothly, as servers, hardware, admin rights, environment set-ups, bandwidth, and other software affect how the implementation will go. “There’s all kinds of complexity to being able to adopt new technology and it really is important to have a champion in the IT group. They do need to be involved. They are the backbone. They are the ones supporting the technology for the long term,” Doug mentions. 

For more information on how to implement new construction estimating software, check out these other resources:  

DESTINI Estimator Implementation Case Study with The Korte Company

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