How Okland tamed TVD budget tracking for the University of Utah with quick onboarding of the Join platform

“We asked, ‘How fast can we get into Join and start tracking what we’re doing?’ The answer was a few hours.”

Brock Randall

Preconstruction Manager

Table of Contents

• Challenge: Get hard-to-track TVD budget under control. Fast
• Solution: Deploy Join within hours and streamline decision-making and budget tracking
• Impact: An exceptional client experience

“This project is TVD everything. We needed a place to centralize all the info.”

Brock Randall, Preconstruction Manager, Okland Construction

Solution: Deploy Join within hours and streamline decision-making and budget tracking.

Randall’s team was just finishing its Schematic Design pricing when it started looking at Join, the collaborative project delivery platform used by more than 50% of the ENR Top 30 GCs. He says the team liked the platform’s single point of truth (goodbye, multiple spreadsheets and version tracking!) and simple, data-rich user interface for communicating complex project information (hello, better team and client experience!).

Super-fast onboarding (mid-project, even!)

Within days, Randall had scheduled a call with Join. “One of the most difficult things about starting a new software program is just changing your thought process,” he says. On his intro call with Join, Randall asked all his questions about the platform and how it would change his workflow: How is Join different from Excel? What can I do and not do in the program? Can I make it work the way that I need it to? How responsive is Join when we have questions or suggestions?
Satisfied with the answers he got for these queries, Randall then asked the most critical question: “We’re already in progress on this project. How fast can we get into Join and really start tracking what we’re doing?” The answer was surprising: A few hours. With that reply, Randall’s team quickly scheduled their Join onboarding. “The Join onboarding process was really smooth,” says Randall. “We had a couple of training sessions on how Join works and how it functions. Then I had a Zoom call with the Join Customer Success team, who got us in the system fast.”
Join’s implementation team helped Brock get the project’s Conceptual and SD budgets set up in one hour. Brock then created 32 items to get the project up to speed, uploaded the final SD on his own, and charged forward.
Impressed with how fast and easy it was to get into Join, Randall says he’s also been happy with Join’s responsiveness to the team’s requests. “They’ve been extremely helpful.”

Steadier grip on TVD budgets

With the team out of spreadsheets and into Join, the Price Computing and Engineering Building team now has a steady grip on its TVD tracking. As Randall explains it, the project is “TVD everything: electrical, envelope, equipment, interiors, mechanical, fire, site, structure. We needed a place to centralize all this separate but related information.”

With TVD projects, in particular, transparency is vital. Teams need to trust that everyone is rowing in the same direction. “Join has been pretty big on helping us with the TVD stuff,” says Randall. “Each function of the project has its own bucket of money. Join helps all the functional teams work on their own buckets, but also work together, because sometimes a decision affects multiple teams. It helps that communication.”

“Join helps all the functional teams work on their own buckets, but also work together, because sometimes a decision affects multiple teams. It helps that communication.”

Brock Randall, Preconstruction Manager, Okland Construction

“We’ve been able to show everybody where everything is at, in real time,” he adds. “For each TVD team, we can visually show them where they’re at, where they’re trending, what they’re tracking, what’s been approved, what’s still pending. Being able to keep them informed the whole way through has been really good. They’ve really liked that.”

Randall believes Join has helped to unite the team and eliminate mistrust. “People no longer say, ‘Hey, why are you doing this? Why aren’t you showing me this? I didn’t realize this was going to happen,’” he says. “Instead, it’s an atmosphere of transparency. You can review something, take a look at it, then review and talk about it together and make decisions. It’s definitely made the decision-making process smoother.”

“Join has been fantastic,” he continues. “We also use it as our Risks & Opportunities logs. We track all of our items in Join, even if it’s not a cost risk or opportunity, and instead a schedule risk or opportunity. We put it into Join to track and keep eyes on it.”

Impact: Better client experience, happier owner.

The Price Engineering and Computing Building, with a $50 million endowment (the largest ever on the campus), has great significance to both the University and the State.

In a January 2023 article on the endowment in the University’s internal publication, The U, the Dean of the College of Engineering, Richard, B. Brown, called the gift transformational: “This is going to cause another inflection point in the ascent of the college and the growth of Utah’s technology sector.”

With much riding on the success of the building and the School of Engineering’s subsequent ability to grow the University’s pool of tech graduates (who largely seek employment in Utah after they graduate), proper management of the project’s construction budget is of great importance for the University of Utah Board of Regents. Being able to see the project’s cost trendline, as well as having transparency into each decision, gives the school greater trust in the project team’s ability to continually protect the project’s financial and programmatic objectives.

“We’ve been able to show the Owner where we think we’re trending and also why…Just being able to share these things transparently with them prior to OAC meetings, I think, has been a real success.”

Brock Randall, Preconstruction Manager, Okland Construction

The Okland team, now finishing its CD pricing phase, has “tracked all the ups and downs as we’re moving through design,” says Randall. “We’ve been able to show the Owner where we think we’re trending and also why. It’s been good because the Owner has seen all along where we’re at and why. Even when we’ve been over-budget, the response has been, “Ok, we know we’re over. So, what now? How do we work through this to get us back into line? What are the items that we can start looking at now?’ Just being able to share these things transparently with them prior to OAC meetings, I think, has been a real success.”