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by samstave 848 days ago
This would be great:

* Resource loading, availability, tasks summary, personal task completion reports..

* Maintain history of task time, cost, resource, as assigned by tasks, and resources completing their tasks.

* Templates of tasks, or projects where if you say have completed a common project that have tasks you do (as if your a consultant with various clients with similar projects you can pull a gant, resource load, historic times as a template - then use them across your Program - and have a report on how similar task groups etc across your program vary.

* Typical completion resources required so that if you simply say the name of a task, it will say "To do this, it usually requires ABC - but right now you only have AB available - so your costs and resource availability for this task on this project is X based on current loadout to resources.

* Track what external resources were needed in historic tasks "To do this - you'll need these external resources, here is a summary email proposal to that external consultant to get costing and availability - effectively using your project plans to generate mini RFPs to the subs/trades/disciplines/departments needed on that task and have it make it easier for not only them to responde, but when they do - have it automatically give you the diff impact to the project/program/task/schedle/cost....

* as you build out project portfolio, you just throw bullets in and it will pull from previous projects and put in the "project-lets" and allow you to build them in a more automated fashion.

* in construction/deployment/commissioning/go-live/acceptance testing (in DCs and Health, and tech), if you can give it a primavera/ms proj/whatever - even a PDF - and have it read what some EXTERNAL PM assigned to you as a sub on the project and have it adjust your section based on your available inputs and effectively import your tasks from some external PM

* have it provide your company with a really well written portfolio completed projects.

* self-service reporting capabilities to external stakeholders... ESPECIALLY CFOs.... with a little dashboard widget that you can just point people to "dart.MYCOMPANY.COM" which could be a status-page like dash for whomever you allow to see highlevel report on demand for your program/projects/departments/budget/etc...

* give scheduling reminders for upcoming resource requirements. - like status checking delivery dates from vendors with simple automated requests for "is component X still scheduled for delivery on DATE" - conversely - sending alerts to delays that will affect subs/trades who need access to a site/area whatever (like concrete guys are two weeks behind, so your delivery area for materials is affected, mr steel guy...)

EDIT: I forgot about the BANE of any large project: CHANGE ORDERS.

Usually these come from project owner/designer -and can have significant impacts on a project sched/cost/resource avail...

If you can track and manage change orders, construction manages/TPMs/any stakeholders will find value in it enough if you can show a report on the history of the projects' intent (budget/end-date) especially because change-orders is usually a two-way street on the negotiations btwn a subs/owner on who pays for what in change order...

example: arch designs "thing" - sub implements it. now three scenarios happen:

1. All good.

2. Arch/owner F'd up intent to sub, sub has to fix at certain costs (the owner will say "your job to know my intent" - subs/trades say "nope, show me the money")

3. sub f-d up and they have to eat all/some portion of cost.

REDUCING CHANGE ORDERS through such comms that I mention above is a golden goose in and of itself - but only you can prevent dumpster fires!.

Finally it ties back to portfolio "reduced change orders by % across N% of our portfolio etc...)

(change orders from a sub, obv comes out of their fees/profit - so change order mtgs on big ticket issues are REALLY fn painful mtgs because its a "who communicated what where when with whom" battles...

====

Attempting to build a project based on this comment:

https://i.imgur.com/ZYsTSk2.png -- this is weird, it just adds checks at bottom of text input - should collapse orig input prompt.

I cant click anything - https://i.imgur.com/LXn2RVU.png

Am I only supposed to have one task in this box? https://i.imgur.com/O3bY286.png

OH I get it... you should have it auto suggest "extract" from each bullet... https://i.imgur.com/2yFXiqd.png -- the UX on this box is confusing...

Or trigger a "would you like to extract/whatever - and have it cycle through each bullet. https://i.imgur.com/2yFXiqd.png

Also - need tool tips. Why the stop-sign? https://i.imgur.com/Kp1FGI7.png

"I'm posting too fast" - so Ill have to just write you guys a separate post later I guess - but the weird UX halts, no exp on what "/ for AI" means out the gate was clunky, but still dope.

(might be better to have your system have an-onboarding example, where you do ALL THE THINGs - and ask the user to reject your examples - kinda like Scenario has prompt chunks with an X if you want to kill that action...)?

What do from here: https://i.imgur.com/HhVU8vK.png - deleted all text, kept "tasks" and cant click anything but X? -- I clicked X - it asked me to DISCARD/KEEP Draft... I KEEP - Where drafts? https://i.imgur.com/1Pb4UMM.png

I'll build a an email to you guys, from this....

3 comments

Loving the detailed product feedback, thanks so much. We'll process and take action to improve asap. Email also sounds great, support@ or zack@ whenever you like.

Sounds like HN was rate limiting you from posting all of your feedback? That's awesome hahaha

In short term, some quick thoughts

- Right now you only have one draft, and you can access it through the 'Resume draft' button in the top left

- We're planning to overhaul this accept/reject system for subtasks soon--a lot of the issues you're experiencing are very common, so we need to do better

- Also planning to improve onboarding flow there, thanks for the suggestion

- Not actually sure why you're being prevented from making that task, sorry for the trouble! We'll check it out right away. Tooltips are a great idea, we'll need to do more there

edit: formatting

Cleaning garage today - so come back to respond when need a break. (or think of an edit)

EDIT:

HAHAH -- I clicked on INBOX like three fn times... the orange S above stole my upper perfiferal focus, so the draft button was invisible or subconsciously appeared greyed out and not a botton... - need a draft underneath INBOX, not above it - the same way every email side menu works.

Just thinking some about your note about change orders. Honestly super interesting. We have been working on detailed audit history which I think can start to help here but really only scratches the surface of what you need to improve.

Also thinking more about

> show a report on the history of the projects' intent

This is a really interesting one and is actually part of where we started with Dart. When I was leading engineering at my last job I was in the habit of taking screenshots of our gantt every week or two so that I could manually flip through the photos and see how the timeline had evolved. Obviously there's no way that's the best solution there. We don't solve this right now but we plan to.

A change order is going to be either the change of a nameplate on a room, or a change to an entire layout of a project.

Regardless of the innocuous ones being a nameplate - to as drastic as floorplate change... here is where I see the master:

Project is El Camino Hospital - I was TPM.

Innocuous:

installing all LV net port in the MRI room, the LV consultant read the symbols wrong and cabled all the cables that were going INTO the room, on the EXTERNAL facing wall FROM the room.

Reviewed plans were correct... change order was obv in budget review as we determined fault... but they had to eat that cost - we had to eat that TIME... as Siemens needed ports live on their private stuff to commission their equip on their end... SO even though that starts small... we can track all of this now against INTENT of proj budget and scope, and see in full how certain butterfly effects affect the result from the intent... (+plus data... blah blah)

Bigger ones can be a relocation of a piece of equipment that requires extra structural... same but bigger ripple.

Others can be Owner desires...

But - if you could advertise a change request/order via a system and just have each trade reply in appropriate format when they are impacted - then incorporate that to the core project - then push back a summary with a simple "approve this interpretation, your responsibility and your first born shack, check the box"

Now you can graph all the interrelated charges, parties, approvals - but you push out summary change reports and simply ensure each stake check yeah. else voice issues and just keep a fn journal of the process for litigation if it were to come to that (which is often)

(OH Yeah in addition to project timeline impact --- change orders always include unexpected labor, equipment, negotiations, permits, blah blah blah -- they are CRITICAL money devils if plagued by them... this is what sets all stellar engineering firms apart... so if change mitigation is imbued in the process organically... $$$ - continuously align understanding of intent with the outcomes is wise...

Wow, really appreciate the detailed list here.

Some of the reporting, history, dashboards, templates, etc. that you mention is covered now but Dart probably isn't quite ready to solve some of your more advanced needs. It's all pretty aligned with our vision in the long run though. We're particularly excited about all of the ideas around resource tracking and allocation--we'll get there! Very curious to hear how it works for you.

What's your use case for

> a really well written portfolio completed projects

? Haven't heard this much before. Useful for an agency to showcase work?

edit: formatting

I've built MILLIONs of SQ ft of hospitals, corporate, DCs, tech, commercial on billion+$ budgets etc... I've done AMAZING work.

I never kept a good portfolio of my own accomplishments, and it would have really helped me as an independent consultant.

I've seen so many smaller consultancies who are quite capable get "out marketed" by bigger consultancies - To have a running, ongoing portfolio - that you dont have to have another resource (pm/graphics/web/copy person... you can have a more compelling portfolio highlighting your success in the project AS YOU GO - so that when you choose to put a completed project on your /about-us - you arent doing anything from memory.... if resources or *PMs* leave your org - they dont take the value of their contribution alone in their head so you cant highlight the success of that part of your company history from memory

Departments can have their automatically weekly/monthly progress/success/issues/updates status reports which is an extremely aggregating and tedious thing to do - the easiest way to stress out a teams productivity is if they have to spend an inord amt of time attempting to craft a status report through having all sub PMs/leads/whomever also having to attempt to recall WTF they did...

Allow a resource to give a voice update and have AI pull that into a salient status update.

Have pictures taken of [issue] (punch lists) and have them described by the subs/whomever -- and then just say "electrical closet 4100 has no firestop, conduit is in wrong place" -- and it updates issues, reports, status and notifies whomever is required (the issue shows up on the LV subs todo with pics, a voice note - and all other associated reports are updated.

It can even be used to create "launch/go-live announcements" -- When we were building out tons of Salesforce floors - we were commissioning then handing off each floor to each depts that occupied those floors as we moved forward. Then it keeps track of progress, but also track open issues and resolutions... so even after hand-off there are so many little punch items that need doing - and sometimes the corp IT/facilities guys have to deal with too many people to address/report/assign and track outstanding punches.

This can also be used to track overall quality of work - and you can have a portfolio of subs across projects/sites/states and say which vendors are performant/in budget etc...

Basically an LLM for your entire program.

[These were feedback I basically gave PlanGrid (YC) when they launched... as I was already CFO/CIO deep in these issues... They got acquired by Autodesk.

You should be acquired/integrate/compete with them...???

Or, since they didnt follow my inputs - take me on as a temp PM and compete. :-)

--

I know that this is initially internal dev-project focus... but all these apply same to large scale construction programs.

+ portfolio and succesful project reports with successful metrics for the build could be an additional service fee that an agency could charge/include in their proposals :DELIVERABLES: X shall provide as included in this RFP a complete project timeline of services, outcomes and XYZ from project that OWNER may use in their own success stories...

etc....

Yep, that makes a ton of sense. I totally see the value in building a portfolio like that.

Well, Dart can do a bit of the shorter-term weekly/monthly project reports/updates now, but I can definitely imagine adding 'full project summary for portfolio building' to the types of reports we can generate. Like you said, great for the team and a cool resource to hand off in deliverables if the owner wants to include as a success story.

Would love to chat more about some of these ideas--shoot me an email!

Those could be plugins... or expose an api for people build own on data they auth to do so...