Ensuring consistent project delivery

Founded in 2013 by Josh Robbins, Work RM is an architectural firm that helps clients bring their projects to life from start to finish through design, documentation, permitting, and construction.

The firm typically works on 10 to 15 active projects at any given time. As a smaller firm, Josh recognized that it’s easy to get overloaded with work and knew he needed a tool to help schedule projects and track time against them in an effective way. 

After trying a few tools that ultimately increased the time spent on project scheduling, Josh found that Forecast was easy to adopt, without sacrificing the features he needed to solve Work RM’s challenges.

Easy Scheduling = Great Client Experience  

Providing a great client experience means setting clear  expectations and then delivering on them. When it’s time to send a proposal to a potential client, Josh appreciates how Forecast provides clarity into his team’s capacity, so he can confidently know what projects he can take on and when he can fit them into Work RM’s busy schedule. 

“When I write a proposal for a project, I'm able to see, well, I'm pretty busy over the next three weeks. I probably need to push the start date of this project a little further to give myself some breathing room. [Forecast] takes a lot of stress out of it, because I hate telling somebody I can do something and then can't do it.” 

Visualizing the Day

Context switching while juggling multiple projects can make it difficult to keep track of what work needs to be done for each project. By using Forecast’s schedule visualization and custom views, Josh gets a birds-eye-view of all his active projects and is always clear on exactly what needs to happen when. 

“One thing I really like about the user interface is that it’s graphically very easy to see what's scheduled, and I can flip flop between project and team views, which is nice,” Josh says. “It’s really easy and quick to see what I need to work on.” 

Josh adds that since Forecast is so easy and efficient, he’s able to get back to what’s truly important in his day. 

“I used to spend so much time each day trying to get organized, but with Forecast, it takes maybe 30 minutes a day, if that. So I’m able to focus on the stuff that actually makes me money.” 

Adding milestones

The ability to not only schedule time on projects, but to include crucial details like project milestones and links to important files makes Josh’s day even easier — especially when he is working across multiple projects simultaneously. 

“Adding in milestones like client meetings, something I can see right away when I open up the software, is nice because things tend to get buried, especially when you have 10 or 15 projects in there. So I like having those pieces because it makes it really easy to see what's going on across all those different projects.”

For a busy architectural firm that prides itself on getting the job done as promised, Forecast has proven to be  a critical tool. With the ease of scheduling, clarity into every project, and the ability to include as much detail as possible, Josh is able to deliver on his promises and make each client a happy one.