Small Firm Exchange

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Who We Are

The mission of the AIA Small Firm Exchange (SFx) is to advance the mutual interests of architects practicing in small firms. The objectives of the AIA SFx are three-fold:

1. Advocate the value of small firms, the national SFx, and local SFx groups, both within the AIA and to the public.

2. Curate and disseminate the most pertinent resources and information, from the AIA & elsewhere, that benefit small firms.

3. Inform the AIA of current issues facing small firms and areas in which current resources/information are lacking.

Approximately 75% of all firms within the AIA are small firms (less than 10 employees), which equates to 14,459 small firms within the organization.

~26.8% = sole practitioners = 5,173

~33.5% = 1-5 employees = 6,459

~14.7% = 5-10 employees = 2,827

For context, small firms share of staff is 16.0% and share of billings is 12.0%

We need to find ways to leverage that size for collaboration and influence, just like the individual large firms do.

   

  

  • 1.  Small firm scheduling / workload management tool

    Posted 05-17-2021 03:58 PM

    I am a principal in our firm of 10 – we have 3 principals, 4 architects, an interior designer, an office manager, and usually an intern.  Our firm has been struggling with finding a firmwide project schedule / workload management tool that is agile and easy to use.  We use Deltek Ajera for our accounting software, but their scheduling component is very granular and requires budgeting time by the hour.  We are simply looking for a way to view all active project schedules/deadlines through an overview that we can reference when we are deciding whether to accept more work, who to assign to projects, and how to establish new project deadlines without unfairly stacking deliverables on top of each other, particularly for staff members assigned to multiple projects.  It would be great if we could get Ajera to produce a format that is useful because so much of the information already is populated there, but I have not had any luck working with their support team.

    I have looked at a ton of options ranging from an Excel spreadsheet, to a more robust interface like MS Project or Monday.com, Asana, etc.  I need something that is simple and easy to keep up to date, but that provides the information that we need to reference at a glance.  Ideally, the tool would also integrate with our Outlook Calendars. 

    Any advice or direction would be greatly appreciated!



    ------------------------------
    Phoebe Randolph AIA
    Principal
    AIA West Virginia
    Huntington WV
    ------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: Small firm scheduling / workload management tool

    Posted 05-18-2021 05:49 PM
    We started using Mosaic and it has been pretty good.

    ------------------------------
    Richard Shugar AIA
    Principal
    2fORM Architecture PC
    ------------------------------



  • 3.  RE: Small firm scheduling / workload management tool

    Posted 05-18-2021 05:52 PM
    I highly recommend Monograph.  The ability to see all of our projects with notable milestones at one glance has been huge for us.  And their "Resource" tool I think would help you with workload, scheduling staff, etc.  They are a relatively new company as of the last couple years, but the updates they keep making are fantastic.  We, along with many other users have been petitioning for it to sync with Google and Outlook calendars and so I know its in the works.  And the reports are fantastic.  And they are focused on Architects.

    And, we still use Asana for project task management even though it's not ideal.

    ------------------------------
    William Itzen AIA
    ITZEN
    ------------------------------



  • 4.  RE: Small firm scheduling / workload management tool

    Posted 05-20-2021 12:41 PM
    I've had success using Monograph.io for project management, scheduling, milestones, time tracking, etc. It is the closest I have found to an all-in-one project management tool that is geared towards architecture. Monograph also has a great team that is constantly making improvements to the software and adding new features. They also have great customer service. 

    Some other firms I work with use ClickUp, Wrike, SmartSheets, and a few other apps to build schedules and manage tasks. None are perfect though. It is tough as each app has its pros and cons. Check out Monograph though. 

    Lucas Gray, Assoc. AIA, M.Arch
    lugray@gmail.com   |   503 453 7195