Collaborative Project Consulting Leads the Green Revolution, With the Help of Manymoon and Google Apps

At a Glance

• Find a tool that would facilitate the Green Building industry’s new focus on Integrative Design
• Allow fifty team members spread all over the world to collaborate seamlessly on multiple projects
• Increase their project efficiency and achieve higher LEED certifications in less time and with less wasted effort

• Used Manymoon, a Project and Task-based social productivity application, to allow all relevant parties to stay on the same page with almost no effort, creating true real-time collaboration
• Used Manymoon’s seamless integration with Google Docs and Google Calendar to eliminate replication of information, and allow all project members to share information in a centralized location where the latest version of any document is always readily available

• Replaced an inefficient and outdated project management methodology that was causing customer satisfaction to drop
• Set the stage for a 20% increase in productivity and saved thousands of dollars in lost productivity
• Achieved a greater number of projects resulting in higher LEED certifications (Gold and Platinum)
• Successfully achieved the methodology of Integrative Design, thus allowing their business to stay at the leading edge of their industry

Manymoon is a leading social productivity tool. Today, businesses are working and collaborating in fundamentally new ways, and Manymoon is enabling them to do so, leaving behind methods that are both inadequate (emails and spreadsheets) and outdated (static project management systems). Let’s take a look at one compelling company that’s using Manymoon (with Google Apps) to help lead the green revolution.

Collaborative Project Consulting, located in Los Angeles, California, facilitates the design and construction of high performance buildings that achieve greater energy efficiency, improve indoor environmental quality and demonstrate commitment to environmental responsibility. Collaborative provides sustainability, energy efficiency, and LEED (US Green Building Council's rating system) consulting services to clients interested in working and living in productive, light filled, and healthy environments.

Everything Collaborative Project Consulting does hinges on open, transparent, and integrated communications. The project teams Collaborative works with include building owners, architects, design engineers, contractors and builders, and commissioning agents (specialty engineers who ensure that installation meets design expectations).

In the traditional building design process, members of the project team work within silos. The underlying intent of all team members is to deliver their contracted scope and minimize liability exposure. There is very little risk taking, and limited opportunity for innovation.

In recent years there has been a paradigm shift in the design process as building owners demand dramatic reductions in environmental impact. To achieve these goals, design teams must innovate and collaborate in new ways. The American Institute of Architects and the US Green Building Council have set a new standard called the "Integrative Design Process" where all parties share information, risk, and ultimately the reward. We will see in a bit how essential Manymoon is to helping Collaborative Project Consulting work successfully in the Integrative Design Process methodology.

James Weiner, AIA, USGBC Charter LEED Faculty, and Principal Consultant at Collaborative, sums it up nicely. “Team members in an Integrative Design Process know fewer boundaries in a process that is fluid and highly innovative, but not many tools have been developed to assist in the critical exchange of ideas, documents, milestones, and tasks. This is a gap we've filled with Manymoon, closely integrated with Google Docs.”

To understand just how helpful Manymoon has been to Collaborative’s work, it is necessary to understand a bit about their goal: achieving high LEED ratings. The LEED rating system is a points-based protocol that assists the creation of green buildings. It does so by providing guidance and incentives across a range of categories like “Water Efficiency” and “Energy and Atmosphere.” The more a team is able to accomplish in each category, the higher the ultimate rating: Certified, Silver, Gold, or Platinum.

At the start of a project, the Collaborative team will establish a Target Review for the project, defining which LEED Credits might be possible and designating which member of the design team is responsible for each credit. It is therefore critical that this Target Review be shared with the project team, and become a living measurement tool for the team--each team member needs access and has permission to edit and contribute.

While the project is ongoing, support documents are exchanged, reviewed, and revised on an ongoing basis. In a highly complex project involving multiple, geographically separated parties and dozens or hundreds of documents, keeping this process organized becomes an exponentially difficult challenge. For example, Collaborative project teams are typically based in California and Nevada, but the design team is spread out in Arizona, California, Nevada, and Texas, and they have consultants in Dallas, Tokyo, and India. Project sizes vary. In all, they have about fifty team members, spread out over 10 projects.

Collaborative recognized the need for an effective information management tool a few years ago. They started using Outlook, but found that tasks and emails were confined to a user's email, or within a Microsoft Exchange Server. There were few opportunities for collaboration, and no intuitive central information management tool. They then tried Basecamp, but noticed that their team members were communicating by email and by Basecamp. Milestones had to be set in Basecamp, then in team members’ individual calendars. Documents could be uploaded, but they resided on Basecamp and couldn't be used in real time.

According to Tim Kohut, AIA, LEED AP Homes and BD+C, Senior Strategist at Collaborative, “The tools we used to work with, like Basecamp, are very static tools and don't do the job. We need tools that are as fluid and collaborative as our business.”

Team members complained that they had to do things twice. Productivity dipped, and so did quality control. Collaborative began searching for yet another solution.

Adopting Manymoon and Google Apps has allowed a huge increase in efficiency and productivity at Collaborative. In Manymoon, Collaborative now creates tasks for each possible LEED credit, and assigns each task to the responsible design team member. They then use the comment box within the task to communicate with the team. This allows them to closely check on the progress without having to sort through emails. According to Tim Kohut, “Communication is now much more efficient for Collaborative, especially when we're managing dozens of tasks spread out across multiple projects and milestones.”

For example, rather than exchange documents through email, Collaborative’s team now attach documents directly in Manymoon, usually through tasks. This greatly increases collaborative efficiency for many facets of the process, one example being the critical Target Review described above.

Tim states “From our perspective, one of the real strengths of Manymoon is its close integration with Google Apps and Google Docs. Gone are the days when our team members email each other requesting that the most recent version of a critical document be shared with them (who has the most recent version, by the way?). Now, documents are alive, fluid, and easily accessible right where you want them - inside the task you're working on.”

And because they’re using Google Docs, Collaborative can share documents without having to worry about version history. When a document is complete at the end of a task cycle, they can print the document as a PDF to memorialize the end of the effort. In other words, Manymoon and Google Docs are a powerful combination. Tim Kohut says “This is far different from the way we used to do business, and an approach we find our design teams embracing more and more.”

Manymoon’s integration with Google Calendar is also critical, Tim says. “We love the integration of our Google Calendars into Manymoon. Each of our projects gets its own calendar and these calendars are shared with our team members. Milestones listed in Manymoon show up in Google Calendars. This is what an integrated process looks like!”

And Collaborative’s customers agree. William Lowery, Facilities Manager for Los Angeles Firemen's Credit Union, hired Collaborative for a LEED-CI (Commercial Interiors) project pursuing LEED Platinum Certification. He states “Manymoon is a great project management tool....It provides the ability to coordinate with many parties, allowing everyone to track progress in an efficient way, reducing the number of phone calls and emails while allowing the team to track progress in a single place. Manymoon also provides regular updates for the team - it's a great tool and resource.”

For Collaborative, Manymoon has become an enduring touchstone. Design and Construction can lasts years in some projects. Project-specific and task-specific communication is critical; Collaborative is not always involved day to day, and sometimes will go weeks without checking in. No problem with Manymoon - click on a task, open up the task dialog box, and check the most recent communication. Collaborative is finding that quality control has improved, teams have easier access to information, and more willingness to communicate and collaborate more freely.

And the associated productivity gains are significant--up to 20% in terms of hours and effort (emails, conversations, etc.) saved. For example, Tim estimates Manymoon saves him having to send 10-15 emails each day. At his billable rate, that’s close to $500 a week in savings. Multiply that across the organization and it adds up to thousands of dollars in saved productivity.

Tim states “Centralizing communications within a project, and even more so within a task allow us to be more surgical in our follow up and quality control. We're able to cover more ground with more precision. The results are still coming in, but we anticipate an increase in productivity in the area of 10 to 20%.”

And the results of using Manymoon are not limited to efficiency gains, but also include greater success in project outcomes. Collaborative Project Consulting works with motivated project teams interested in high levels of LEED Certification (very often Gold or Platinum). To achieve high levels, the management of information is critical.

Tim Kohut says “Manymoon has allowed Collaborative to keep our project radars active, up-to-date, and current. We've been able to use the tool to define and manage our approach to our LEED projects. With Manymoon we have been able to hit those higher levels of certification more easily.

Manymoon has not just provided Collaborative Project Consulting with a more efficient way of managing documents, tasks and projects. Rather, Manymoon's social and collaborative nature has also helped shape an environment where a fundamentally new process, Integrative Design, can be carried out with greater success by Collaborative and the project teams it works with.

And that means Collaborative can deliver buildings and developments that significantly reduce impact on the environment, especially in the critical arena of energy and greenhouse gas reductions. This is vital work that will lead our society into the 21st century, and Manymoon is very proud to be making it possible.

According to Collaborative’s James Weiner, “Manymoon is a cornerstone of our Collaborative process. Our industry, in dealing with energy efficiency and climate change, has to pull in consultant teams, contractors, owners, city officials, policy makers across a broad spectrum, and we are constantly juggling multiple projects. Connecting people so that they can easily share their knowledge in the context of their workflow is essential to integrative design. Without a tool like Manymoon, it wouldn't be possible for us to do this.”

And Collaborative is looking to the future, as well. James continues: “Beyond the 30% energy and water reduction we currently achieve, our goal is to help lead the industry towards zero energy and carbon neutral buildings. The stakes are high for all, and the Collaborative process will enable us to reach shared goals.”

Tim Kohut concludes enthusiastically “Integrative Design demands an integrated communication tool that will allow us to innovate and evolve at the same pace as our projects. Manymoon and Google Apps enable us to chart a course forward. Onward with Manymoon!”