A Gartner report from 2021 states that dirty data can “costs businesses an average of $12.9 million annually.” Data is moved around, touched by a lot of team members, duplicated and duplicated and duplicated, forgotten about, and left to rot in the corners of the database until it is the next project’s problem.
Keeping your estimating data squeaky clean ensures it's always ready to go when your team needs it. Not only does this make your cost database neat and tidy, but it also makes it super easy for your team to quickly find what they need. And let's face it, there are several good reasons why keeping your preconstruction data clean is crucial:
Overall, keeping preconstruction data clean is essential for ensuring the success of a construction project. It helps project teams make informed decisions, stay on budget, and avoid costly mistakes and delays. Now that we have a good understanding of why it is important to maintain clean estimating data let’s get into how to do it.
Before diving into cleaning, make a plan of attack. Decide which areas of your database need the most attention and what tasks you want to tackle first. By chunking up the all-encompassing “estimating data” you can set realistic and attainable goals. It also means you can delegate to other team members a portion of the data to review and clean. We recommend the following schedule:
Carve out time on your calendar to focus on the tasks. And be realistic about the amount of effort it is going to require. It may take you five hours to complete cleaning one portion of your preconstruction data, but you may not have five hours in one single day. Set the time on your calendar each day and treat it as a highly important meeting. Don’t let other people schedule over it and don’t let yourself get sidetracked by other tasks.
Decluttering preconstruction data means getting rid of unnecessary or irrelevant information and organizing the remaining data in a clearer and more manageable way. It's like cleaning up a messy room and putting things in their proper places. This could include outdated cost data, duplicate entries, or data that doesn't directly impact your estimates.
In construction estimating, you deal with a lot of data related to costs, quantities, materials, and other project details. Sometimes, this data can become overwhelming and difficult to work with. Decluttering helps simplify and streamline the data so that it's easier to understand and use.
Next, you can organize the remaining data in a logical and structured manner. This can involve categorizing the data based on different aspects of the project, such as cost categories (like labor, materials, equipment), project phases (like site preparation, foundation, finishing), or even specific work items (like flooring, plumbing, electrical). By grouping similar data together, you can quickly access and analyze the information you need.
Additionally, you can use software specifically designed for construction estimating to help you declutter and organize your data more efficiently, like DESTINI Estimator. Our platform provides features like data filtering, sorting, and visualizations, which can make it easier to work with large amounts of information.
Data cleaning and organization are important steps in working with your preconstruction data. Here are some key tasks involved in scrubbing your data:
Keeping your peers updated on why the cleaning is important, what has been changed, and looking for ways to keep it maintained will benefit you (and your sanity) as well as your company for future cleaning efforts. Getting other team members involved in the data cleaning is highly recommended. You can send a filtered report to each estimator on your team to have them fix the issues. This delegation will help them improve their everyday workflows.
Keeping preconstruction estimating data clean is crucial for the success of your business. Whether you are tackling this cleaning in the Spring or Winter or whenever you carve out the time to do it doesn’t matter. The fact that you are making this a priority is the most important part of this effort.