Traits to Look for in a Construction Software Champion

Apr.21, 2009 in Computers

You’ve decided your company needs new construction management software and have started looking at options. The question is: Have you designated someone in your company to be the software champion?

Every company, whether a huge corporation or a small local organization needs somebody tasked with leading the charge to evaluate and implement the new software to achieve better efficiencies for the organization. A good software champion will have certain traits that will ensure success.

Here are five traits that you want to look for in your company’s software champion:

Experience in Software Implementation - Learning the ins and outs of software evaluation and implementation on-the-fly will jeopardize your initiative. That’s why your construction software champion must have prior experience evaluating and implementing software and be able to read and understand construction software reviews. Keep in mind that the scope of previous experience needed to make a sound decision increases with company size and complexity of operations.

Knowledge - It is important that you select a person to be the software champion that has a good understanding of how your company operates. This knowledge will be extremely beneficial when speaking with vendors during software demos and sales calls as they will be able to identify the good points of the software in question and will also have the knowledge necessary to ask the right questions.

Support - Since the software champion will be making decisions on behalf of the entire company, you must choose somebody that you trust. Selecting new software is a process that involves a lot of time and money. If you have a management team that is indecisive or unwilling to work off the recommendations provided by your software champion, you will be doomed to waste a lot of time and money in selecting new construction software. When the champion has the full support of management, the project will be more likely to stay on task when the inevitable bumps in the road come up.

Respect of Peers - Without the respect and confidence of his/her peers, the construction software champion won’t get the cooperation needed to gather information and data to move to a new system. Choose a well-respected individual to lead the charge for new software.

Change Advocate - Implementing new construction accounting software will be a big change for your company. As such, it is important to select a software champion that is not afraid of change and is comfortable being in the position of change advocate. He or she will need to have the ability to address concerns that arise from other employees in a respectful and patient manner as well as the technical expertise to evaluate and select the right software, whether viewpoint software or a better alternative.

In conclusion, the software champion that you select to oversee your new construction software implementation will be one of the most critical aspects to the project’s success. Finding a person with the right background that will get support from management and peers will greatly increase your chances of success and improvement from the new software.