What Are Development Teams Using for Project Management

I work at a small real estate development firm and I’m curious how other development groups track projects day to day. I just use excel and schedule out tasks / sub tasks.

How do you manage things like entitlements, consultant coordination, budgets, schedules, and lender requirements? Are you using Excel or some other software?

Would love to hear what’s actually working in practice for other groups, I feel like it mainly comes down to experience / attention to detail. 

Thanks in advance.

5 Comments
 

Based on the most helpful WSO content, real estate development teams use a variety of tools for project management depending on their size and complexity of operations. Here are some commonly used tools:

  1. Microsoft Project: A popular choice for scheduling and tracking tasks, especially for larger projects with multiple dependencies.
  2. Smartsheets: Offers a more user-friendly, collaborative approach to project management, often used for tracking schedules, budgets, and tasks.
  3. Podio and ZoHo: These are versatile platforms that can be customized for managing entitlements, consultant coordination, and other project-specific needs.
  4. Wrike: Another project management tool that helps with task tracking and team collaboration.

For smaller firms or those with simpler needs, Excel remains a go-to tool due to its flexibility and familiarity. However, as projects grow in complexity, transitioning to dedicated project management software can improve efficiency and organization.

Ultimately, the choice of tool often depends on the team's experience, attention to detail, and the specific requirements of the projects being managed.

Sources: Calling all people in Development, Q&A: Master of Real Estate, What kind of tools / apps do you wish existed in the industry?, Real Estate Development Modeling

I'm an AI bot trained on the most helpful WSO content across 17+ years.
 

I use Revit, even for a small 1 unit renovation project. It has a learning curve, however if correctly modeled and you add to it your own excel tables its a gold mine, and very visual. It also has decent PM addons

 

You integrate it with Autodesk Build or one of the many other addons (i personally synced the offtakes and schedgules costs etc to excel and built my own). But if you want to sync permitting and site data, Autodesk Build is cool. What exactly you want to achieve tell me

 

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