Projects are my life, so project information is my life blood. In the 70s-80s I was working on supermassive projects that had unpresented amounts of project data. Managing engineering, cost, logistics, contract, and construction data required a stupid amount of filing cabinets and clerks. It was a costly, cumbersome, and severely limiting way to manage data. Unfortunately it was all we had.

Unfortunately again, I was the quarterback in this offensive data management scheme. I hated it so much that after a few years I began early attempts at digitizing and cataloging project data using the terrible tools that were available at the time. These new tools were a step up from the filing cabinets but a long way from the project data utopia I imagined.

I went on to develop those tools into a software company that managed and integrated project data for a generation of Oil & Gas and construction projects. My company (ProjecTools) still operates today and when I look at the current iterations, I see traces of my rudimentary systems of the 80s.

My history with information management isn’t all that important to you. I get that. What is important is that 95% of projects I work with are facing the same situation I faced in the 80s. Projects have no information management plan, so the information quarterbacks for each department or discipline are using excel to catalogue or organize information. The same track I was on 30 years ago except each person in the office has a computer and dropbox/sharepoint took over for the filing cabinet some years back.

The point is that project information is the life blood of your project. You need to treat it with due respect and you most likely aren’t. You can try to figure it out on your own or you can use my 35 years of experience to get your quarterbacks working together for the betterment of your projects.