"Use the Tools You Have" was a theme of the Plumbing-Heating-Cooling Contractors—National Association (PHCC) Educational Foundation's popular Essentials of Project Management class last week. Twenty-two attendees engaged in the highly interactive and intense four-day class conducted March 13- 16. The event was held at the Viega Training Facility in Nashua, New Hampshire, with lead instruction from Purdue University Professor Emeritus Kirk Alter.

Several of the attendees in this session were newly promoted to project management from positions in the field. "As project managers, you still must work with tools to get your job done," Alter said. "But those tools are the software we use to document, analyze and report job information."

During class, the attendees were tasked one evening with using spreadsheets to analyze the status of a construction project just from a single monthly work in progress (WIP) report. The following morning, Alter guided attendees through how they could pull an incredible amount of detail out of the software about cash flow, profitability, the competence of management on the project, the relationship with the customer, areas of strength and exactly where things went wrong. 

"This is just a spreadsheet program. It has been around for decades and every single one of you have it on your computer - but have any of you used it this way?" Alter asked  . The attendees also learned how to quickly use software to build a project schedule to submit with their proposal and how artificial intelligence could simplify processes. "Now that you have seen what you can do, use the tools you have and look for others that can help you become an even better project manager!"

Viega sponsored and hosted the project management class at their New Hampshire Training Facility, providing the training room, A/V, meals for the attendees and more. 

"We are very grateful to have the support from Viega for this class," said John Zink, vice president of development and communications, PHCC Educational Foundation. "Their generous hosting creates a great experience for our attendees and makes our program more accessible than other similar industry training programs." 

The Foundation will be conducting a two-day Creating Super Foremen workshop at Viega's Training Facility May 3-4, with Kirk Alter again providing instruction. Visit https://phccfoundation.org/essentials for more information and to register.