Hot take: Project management software is making field guys slower, not faster

I was on a job site in Austin last month, standing on the second floor of a mixed-use building, trying to get a concrete pour approved. The foreman had to open three different apps on his phone just to find the current revision of the foundation plan. Then he had to wait for the superintendent to accept a digital RFI before we could move. Meanwhile the concrete truck was sitting there for 45 minutes, and I could hear the driver yelling from the street. That delay cost us about 800 bucks in waiting time. The whole idea of these apps was to speed things up, but I'm seeing guys standing around staring at screens way more than they ever did with paper blueprints. Has anyone else run into a situation where the software added more steps than it saved?

2 comments

2 Comments

michaelnguyen1mo ago

Three different apps" lol we got guys using 4 apps just to clock in and out now.

jennifer_west1mo ago

Three different apps" is exactly what I'm wondering about. Are these apps all from different companies that can't talk to each other, or is the company just buying whatever new thing looks cool? Because I've seen places where the scheduling is in one app, the time clocks in another, and the paystubs or PTO requests are in a third one that nobody can log into. Does your HR person actually know how many apps you guys are using, or did it just pile up over the years with no plan?