[Case Study] Shaw Builders creates multimillion dollar homes with Basecamp

Bob Moore commented at Signal vs. Noise about how Shaw Builders, his home-building company, uses Basecamp.

We use Basecamp to help manage the complex process of building custom homes. We work with a wide range of talented architects, interior designers, engineers, landscape architects, masons, electricians, plumbers, HVAC contractors. Our clients range from Wall Street Exec's (super type A's) to Hollywood celebs. If they actually had to take the time to "learn" how to use Basecamp, they wouldn't use it. Sometimes a simple tool can solve a wide variety of major problems and Basecamp does that for us.

We followed up with Bob to learn more about how his team uses Basecamp.

How do you use Basecamp and why do you like it?
We're a high end custom home builder with a staff of around 50 people. This includes office personnel, site project managers, lead carpenters, finish carpenters, masons, cabinetmakers and laborers. A typical project is in the area of $ 3 million to $ 8 million dollars. We normally have 4 to 5 projects running at any given time. Each project has it's own dedicated project manager who has P&L responsibilities for their project. The project team also includes architects, civil engineers, mechanical engineers, interior designers, landscape architects and sub-contractors for HVAC, electrical, plumbing, etc. There's a ton of information to manage and track. This is where Basecamp comes in. We use it to track project to do lists, project milestones, Project logs, Builders Reports and photos. We post photos almost on a daily basis. The architects and homeowners love the fact that they can check on the project from anywhere in the world.
 
I'm a huge fan of hosted applications. Fewer management headaches for me! I like Basecamp because it's simple for everyone to use yet powerful enough to allow us to do the things we need to. For example, I use Google's Picasa to post our photos and link to slideshows right from Basecamp. I haven't run into a lot of limitations. Our customers range from the hyper Wall Steet type "A"'s to Hollywood artists and celebrities. If they felt at all intimidated by Basecamp, they wouldn't use it. We haven't run into that.

Which features do you use most?
We use messages, file uploads and milestones extensively. We host our own FTP server so we've got a ton of space for PDF files, photos, spreadsheets, etc. I've put together a word document that we use as a template for our Project log. Each project manager uses this template to keep everyone up to date on the status of their project. You just fire up Word, make the required edits and then copy and paste into Basecamp. I try to post a project log on a daily basis to keep everyone abreast of what's happening and what decisions are required to keep the project on track.

What did you use before and why did you switch?
We actually used to use a BBS to track project information. It worked for basic documentation but wasn't widely used by our project teams.

We purchased a few seats of Primavera's Expedition project management software but it was too difficult for our project team members to use. Once I found Basecamp, I quickly replaced Expedition.

Get specific. Tell us a story about a project or situation where
Basecamp helped you kick ass.
The biggest problem we have is communication and avoiding the he said / she said syndrome. It seems that everyone has selective memory and most homeowners are overwhelmed with the number of decisions that have to be made when building a custom home of this caliber. Basecamp has saved the day numerous times by simply providing a document trail. I can easily use Basecamp's search capability to isolate documents or massages that relate to a particular task. This has saved us a tremendous amount of aggravation and money. On a past project I had a homeowner who insisted that the railing of his 2nd floor deck wasn't built correctly. When I pulled up the meeting notes and the AutoCAD drawing through Basecamp within 2 minutes of his "brain fade" I was able to quickly put his argument to bed. That helped to enforce our credibility and saved us from having to rip the railing out at our cost.

Any Basecamp tips or tricks for other customers?
As I mentioned earlier, I use Google's Picasa for uploading and storing project photos. This works really well with Basecamp. It's also FREE !!!

You just setup a Google account, download Picasa and create web galleries that are easy to share. Then you just embed the URL to a Basecamp message and you've got an indexed link to your photos. This works out really well.

I found it best to launch a separate window from Basecamp so that the user can easily return to Basecamp, rather than having to hit the browsers back arrow a bunch of times.

Anything else?
Check out our websites at shawbuilder.com and shawmillworks.com for further information and photos.

Do you use a 37signals product in an interesting or noteworthy way? Let us know.