CASE STUDY
From Yellow Notepads to Standardized Success
Criterion Development Partners’ Transformation with iDO and Asana
CRITERION DEVELOPMENT PARTNERS
Criterion is a developer of multi-family real estate primarily in the Massachussets and Texas markets.
INDUSTRY
Real Estate Development
REGION
USA
Asana Plan
- Advanced
Key Features
- Template Projects
- Templates Task
- Portfolios
- Automation
iDO Engagement
Hourly Package
- Audits
- Workshops
- Basic Trainings
- Follow up + Q&A
Key Outcomes
- Master Roadmap
- Key Project Template
- Portfolio Management
- Documented SOP’s
About CDP: A Legacy in Real Estate Development
2004
Criterion Development Partners is a real estate developer in the multi-family space, with offices in Dallas, TX and Boston, MA. They’ve been operating since 2004, making them experts in the sphere of real estate development going on 20+ years! They are well acquainted with the communication and logistical obstacles that their industry faces. Real Estate development, like many things in life, truly is a massive checklist, hiring up to 50 consultants (or more) for a single development, managing ever-changing priorities, moving timelines, all the while aiming to making investors happy by hitting budgets and milestone dates. Back in the 90s, when the founders were cutting their teeth in development, all of this was tracked with the (in)famous “yellow notepad.”
THE CHALLENGE
They upgraded from the yellow notepad to spreadsheets and progress was made every year to streamline better communication between team members about priorities, deadlines, and the various action-items each development site requires. However, over time, the quantity of spreadsheets grew and grew in order to track the various checklists and timelines. This eventually created a new problem of spreadsheet management in a siloed organization, and a lack of standardized formats across the various spreadsheets.
“How do we solve the problem of master timelines while also tracking the granular details without duplication of work?”
Before Asana, excel files to track project progress and information were updated individually, but it was too easy to lose track of which excel file was the most updated copy. Additionally, the development managers worked in a very siloed atmosphere, so each employee would create their own new version of the file for their project, preventing the company from being able to standardize procedures and manage multiple projects at the same time.
Managers themselves lacked a defined or consistent system for keeping track of how their employees were performing, what priorities they were managing, or what deadlines might be behind, creating more work for the managers to shift management systems with each employee.
Additionally, email often became the method of storing information – requiring people to search through their email inboxes to find key pieces of information or remember what final decisions were made.
Putting reports together either for internal use or even external-use was taking up too much time because it required digging through various emails, versions of files, and notes from different locations in order to assemble all the information.
“Having someone who knew the ins-and-outs of Asana was invaluable to making the platform work for us. iDO showed us things that would have taken us many hours to investigate on our own.”
Kicking off new developments with standardized outlines and overlapping timelines
Over the course of 6 sessions, iDO worked with Criterion to create a template for their Predeveloment projects, titled the Predevelopment Roadmap. This template implemented structure and functionality by leveraging Asana in a way Criterion had not known how to do prior to their sessions due to their limited knowledge of the platform capabilities. With the roadmap in place, several things fell into place.
Instead of a lack of structure, every predevelopment deal now follows the same outline, allowing managers to have a consistent way to track not only the progress of the development deal but also the work of their developers.
The template also provides a clear flow of work for the individual developers, setting clear SOP’s which communicate next steps and priorities. Additionally, this centralized location to discuss the key tasks, and milestones deadlines auto-generated a weekly meeting agenda between developer and manager.
Putting reports together either for internal use or even external-use was taking up too much time because it required digging through various emails, versions of files, and notes from different locations in order to assemble all the information.
The template gave clear structure to the managers so they didn’t have to change their method of management with each development deal or each developer under their wing. This created consistency for the managers, as well as for the developers who received clarity on their workflow, enabling them to meet deadlines instead of feeling lost in the chaos.
Similarly, because all projects are now based on a template which house all key elements of the predevelopment phase, instead of searching through emails, notes, excel files, and more to generate a weekly agenda or progress report, the manager and developer can now use the project itself to quickly see which tasks are off track and use the Dashboard view to report on progress. In addition, a portfolio was set up to compare all predevelopment projects side by side so that upper-management can track progress on a global level and with consistency, instead of having each developer provide a different customized report for each different predevelopment project, reducing time spent on reporting and increasing employee capacity for problem-solving and forecasting instead.
Predevelopment Roadmap Template
Explore our simplified Predevelopment template inspired by Criterion. It’s designed for flexibility and efficiency in Asana, featuring:
📂 Sections by Category
🚦💡💰 Custom Fields for Status, Priority, and Budget
🤖 Automation Rules for task management
☑️ Checklist for Real Estate Phase essentials
🏆 Milestones to track project progress
🎉 Plus, fun emojis!
Customize it to fit your needs and kickstart your project management journey!
“Arthur and his Team at iDO were wonderful to work with. Development has so many moving parts, and even though iDO is not a specialist in our specific industry, having someone who knew the ins-and-outs of Asana was invaluable to making the platform work for us. He showed us things that would have taken us many hours to investigate on our own, demonstrating and training on functionalities that we were either not utilizing at all, or improperly. The accountability and collaboration with Arthur helped us optimize our Asana implementation quickly and effectively.”
Client Testimonial
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