[David Cutler]

Sooo many thoughts on this @Doug McLean …

My manager doesn’t want anything to do with the tools that I’ve built/learning about my workflow with exporting markups/washing in Excel/Importing to B2W.

Very frustrating as I’m sure he could be more efficient with some sharper tools…

Let’s not forget those who cling to that “other” PDF software….

[Troy DeGroot]

@David Cutler your boss may not want anything to do with it, but I bet he has no problem shifting more and more work your way. The accuracy and efficiency say enough. Not to mention the ease of updates when change orders come through.

[Roye Arie]

Inhale… Exhale… Inhale… Exhale…

It’s such a loaded topic. In summary, it depends what’s your relationship with that person. Are you training him (officially or not officially? Supervising him? Is it a person from a complete different company that does things differently?

I think a lot of that has to do with “what is their end goal”. As a Construction Contract Admin, I don’t get in the depth of full estimating capabilities (at least not with the company I work for, there’s no need for it), I enjoy geeking out on it, but I don’t have daily use for it.

On the flip side, I try to push other limits to make my life easier, my workflow better, and more so to help improve our drawings.

I think the best approach is trying to talk to that person, get an idea for “why”. Why they are doing certain things in a certain way, and go on from there. Ultimately, if they are learning to become the next you, then (if they are open to it) you can dump all the knowledge on them. But start with getting the feeling of what they are going to use Revu for.

[Doug McLean]

lol… breathing

Honestly, the problem here goes deeper than one person, although there is more or less one at the center of it.

I did have a whole training program in place, but then Covid hit and we weren’t allowed to do any group training.

[Roye Arie]

@Doug McLean how is the training program different in person vs. virtual training? Is it mostly the personal interaction in seeing if someone is getting it or not?

There is a barrier in hosting a digital meeting/training, it’s difficult to gauge people’s interest and attention span.

But to your core point of the thread, I think that everyone uses Revu differently depending on their needs, but there are some fundamental basics that everyone should know, and follow.

(One “favorite” pet peeve is the ones that make their markups stand out, so they pick out different, awful, markup colors. Ummm… You guys know that one can filter your markups?)

[Rebecca Yu]

I agree with what has already been said. Personally I wait until that person is already reaching out with a question and when I have helped them with that question, and then ask if I can share a tip when I’m done answering their question.

If it isn’t the right time for them, I may send a link to something I’ve written up on the subject or just mention that if they are ever interested I can show them another way to approach whatever it is.

Those who simply don’t know any better will be appreciative, those who don’t want to change are never going to listen until they want to. Nothing I can do about that, so I move on to those who want to know.

[Doug McLean]

all great points

[Doug McLean]

I’ve quietly started with a few people on custom toolsets. (Basically I took the stock toolsets from the Revu profile and tweaked them) They all seem to actually like and understand the purpose of doing that.

I’ve also started using the Status Column more, complete with Custom Statuses, and have also introduced a Responsibility Column for anything that we have to have a vendor for.

I think I’m just going to keep putting these into my bids and see if anyone actually notices.
Start doing full markup summaries and leaving little breadcrumbs.

Maybe, eventually, someone will ask how I did that.

[Isaac Harned]

We have a pretty small department, so knowledge can be spread pretty easily, especially with weekly meetings, but when I see one of them struggling or I notice going the long way around, I ask them why they did that, followed by a “Did you know…”.

All outside our department don’t use the full extent, but in their case, I have a consolidated shortcut reference that’s highlighted with the important stuff, and they get their profile from us. Alot of them don’t even know how to modify things in their profile, all they might do is Counts and comments. If we have a new procedure, the training falls on us, so those are the opportunities I take to teach them the little things that can generally help with navigation and the like.

After a while of that, most started to get the picture that I was the resident expert, so then they would start bringing the questions to me. Now almost every day I have someone ask, “Hey, how did you….”, “Have you seen this happen?”, or my favorite, “Is something like this possible?”

Probably all on a way smaller scale than your office though, only about 100 here.

[Wm Osburn]

Interesting discussion but I need more information before I can really give an answer. It depends on what the user is doing where there is a better way. I learned how to replace page contents and that saved me time later on when I had some process design drawings to update. I ended up showing others how to do it and they updated their instrumentation and controls (I&C) diagrams.

[Troy DeGroot]

great conversation here and lots of valuable points. My perspective of course is different as I train departments and whole companies, just happens to be a lot of them. 😜

I always strive to learn the entire workflow regardless of software or paper. I look for where they start, where they want to finish and what obsticales are in the way. Then I show them all the possiblities and pay attention to what sticks. What do they ask questions about, what makes them suddenly sit up in their chair and pay closer attention.

In reality, what I’m doing is trying to inspire them to design their own workflow based on whats possible. Once I get them thinking it through, they ask better questions and uncover more possiblities.

I read in a book once, no mater what the training or meeting is about, always be the person who follows comments or questions with “Yes and”. Always think bigger.

[Doug McLean]

I love it when I get them in a room and I get that ‘ah ha’ moment. Problem is, I’m not getting them in the room.

Once I get them there though…

[Troy DeGroot]

I can relate to that for sure. Around 2009 I implemented BIM into the engineering firm I worked for. This involved 70 employees across 7 offices, many of which were rural locations. I started to create success stories, I printed cool stuff and purposely left them on the printer for everyone to see, and I got management on board with a written implementation plan filled with milestones and expectations at all levels. At first, they looked at me like I stepped off a time machine from the future and thought it was a gimmick for Autodesk software sales.

Every conversation should start and end with the “WHY”

In the end, we were one of the first all-discipline engineering firms using BIM for Structural, Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing, Fire Protection, Civil, and Laser Scanning. It was very attractive to customers, having a fully coordinated model all from one company.

I guess all that to say, create wins, no matter how big or small, and make noise about it. Tell the stories over and over again until everyone finishes the ending for you. When they get sick of hearing it, that’s when they are finally starting to get it. Sooner or later they will either want on the train, someone will push them on or they will be left at the station.

[Roye Arie]

We’ll take a moment of silence to remember all the ideas the died under the phrase “but that’s how we always done it”…

People don’t like two things: The way things are, and change. People object change for different reasons. That can create little undergrounds of more open minded people that choose to expand their knowledge and learn, better ways or more efficient ways.

When I onboard a new team member I tell them that I’m teaching them what I thing is the best approach for this scenario, but I encourage them to come up with a better way be more efficient with something.

[Doug McLean]

most dangerous phrase in business…. “We’ve always done it that way!”

[Doug McLean]

I’ve been doing that, but instead of getting people to want to learn, they just want me to do more.

I was asked about two weeks ago to show all the glass we have in the mall project we’re working on. I mentioned to the Sr. Project Manager that yeah, you guys need to learn how to do the export, he more or less dismissed that notion. They honestly have no concept of what the markups list can actually do for them.

Its so frustrating that since 2019 or so, almost no-one here has even bothered to see what more Revu can even do.

I did do that full Markup summary anyways, left it sitting in a folder. We’ll see if it even gets noticed. (I like leaving it, accidently on purpose, on a printer though).

[David Cutler]

I guess that is part of the danger of being the person with the best set of tools in the shop – everyone looks to you to get it done rather than learning to do it themselves – even if you have a sign saying “feel free to borrow any tools” on your toolbox. 🙂

Implementation push may need to come from higher up the ladder. I wonder if when someone like @troy-degroot comes in they get better buy-in from the organization because upper management has brought someone in from outside which implies “this is important to me”.

Maybe you need to get the company to bring in @troy-degroot to implement what you have developed @Doug McLean 🤣

[Troy DeGroot]

I’ll be in Canada over Christmas break @Doug McLean 😜

@David Cutler is correct though, leadership tends to listen to outside resources. They assume an expert knows best and don’t always realize they have an expert on hand. In my implementations, I always ask for people like Doug to be heavily involved so I can build on what they have already done. I also interview all the people who resisted to see how we could get over that obstacle. It’s always a delicate dance trying to please everyone.

In your shoes Doug, I would track the hours they keep you away from doing your job. If they are on the edge of hiring a new employee, this might eliminate that need or escalate it. Protect your time and sanity, it will be the only useful thing in your box when you leave the job.

[Doug McLean]

what part…. its a REALLY BIG country…lol

I’m taking a couple of weeks off around then, so if you’re coming to the Vancouver area, we can get together.

I could probably even swing a shop tour if your family will let you get away.

[Troy DeGroot]

We’re nowhere near you, we are going skiing in Banff. Would love a tour at some point, nothing like the smell of sawdust in the morning!