Great Finds

Michael Wood Providence Homes, Fort Worth, Texas

Although Michael Wood has owned and operated Microsoft Office Project for nearly 18 years, he admits he has only recently learned how to truly use it successfully. But in the past two years—now using Project Standard 2003—he has come to depend on the system to simplify and organize his business’s processes.

Like many small builders, he says, he had never been successful in implementing the software’s scheduling features. “I always printed a construction schedule for each project and would even give a copy to the homeowner in an attempt to appear ‘organized,’” Wood says. But the schedule would ultimately be abandoned.

However, after a casual comment from a colleague clued him into what he’d been doing wrong, Wood says he was able to custom-create a template in Project that now enables him to easily organize and maintain his schedules on a weekly basis. His scheduling format essentially provides complete documentation of his company’s system for building a home and gives him greater control over the entire process, including customer selections. “Microsoft Project has now become the central document that guides our daily construction operations and provides an amazingly effective tool for delegating responsibilities,” he says.

Microsoft. 800.426.9400. www.microsoft.com.