You’ve Done the Hard Work. Now What?

Last week, we shared a story about wasted product knowledge from the principal of a mid-sized firm. His project team spent over 40 hours researching and configuring a particular light fixture on a project last year — but when he wanted to use it on a new project, he was shocked to realize none of that original research had been retained in an easily accessible place. He ended up wasting hours of valuable time to dig through the prior team’s notes, files, and emails to recover it!

Imagine that principal’s duplicative effort multiplied across an entire firm. This is wasted time that will certainly be duplicated again and again on every project. This unnecessary work drains firm productivity, innovation, and individual morale — its just not what talented architects, engineers, and designers want to be spending their time on!

We heard similar stories from others this past week, especially for products and assemblies whose research requires a combination of online search from multiple sources and technical conversations with product reps. While it’s normal — and even preferred for some — to specify new combinations of materials project to project, many are recognizing that digital tools have the capability to significantly reduce the need to re-research best practices for the use of those products. No one is happy re-researching sealant types.

We do not suggest that firms skip the proper due diligence on all the products they select and specify. On the contrary, this is where the initial investment in time can and should be made. Nor are we devaluing the educational benefits of learning more about products you use. Our point is that all the product research conducted in your firm reflects a huge investment of valuable time — time that should and must be protected, and be of benefit to everyone in your firm.

Take time to research and save product information, but then save it for future use. Save it once. The next time you or your firm need to reference that information, there’s no reason it shouldn’t take seconds (not minutes, and certainly not hours) to surface that information again, so you can begin the selection process at an elevated baseline of product knowledge and understanding.

Take these steps and you can begin to fantasize about that extra time you’re saving. Spend more on the design and innovation of a project? Take on more business? You might even go home at a normal hour… there’s nothing wrong with that!