WORK RM

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Industry

Architecture

Team size

15 people

Location

Austin, Texas

Team utilizing Forecast for better lives

The challenge

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

The firm juggles anywhere from 10-15 projects at a time. As a smaller firm, Josh says it’s easy to get overloaded with work. He realized he needed something to help schedule projects and track time against them in an effective way — a way that doesn’t prevent actual work from getting accomplished.

After trying a few dense tools that made the process even more cumbersome than before, he found that learning Forecast was much simpler, which as a result made it much more effective for his business.

The solution

Simple scheduling

As mentioned above, Work RM manages anywhere from 10-15 projects at a time and is mindful about avoiding any work overload or underdelivering on due dates for clients. So when it’s time to send a proposal to a potential client, he enjoys Forecast’s clarity into what he can take on and when.

“Whenever I send a proposal out, it's based on how much time I think it's going to take,” Josh says. “And so if a project takes a hundred hours and I've said it's going take 20 to 30 weeks to complete, then I can pretty easily say I know that two weeks from now I'm working on that project for a certain number of hours.”

“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.It takes a lot of stress out of it, becauseI hate telling somebody I can do something and then can't do it.”

Easy visibility

As mentioned above, Josh needs a tool that helps him get things done easily and effectively — without adding another burden to his day. And as an architect, he’s also an inherently visual person. Luckily Forecast checks both of these boxes.

“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 actually 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 also go more in depth with Forecast makes Josh’s day even easier — especially when he gets in the weeds on multiple projects at once.

“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.”

“I'll be using Forecast and Harvest for as long as you guys offer it.”

Conclusion

For a busy architect firm that prides itself on getting the job done as promised, Forecast is a critical tool. With the ease of scheduling and 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.

“The ability to color code new potential business vs. current project runnings vs. retainers has been exceptionally helpful when understanding what work people are booked to.”