How to Create Internal Best Practices for Preconstruction/Relay

Relay provides you with more than a spreadsheet to copy and paste in your bid information. Relay connects all project stakeholders and data in one location to reduce rework, increase data accuracy, and improve insight into a project’s status. We’re here to set you up with a working framework—one that walks you through the steps needed to ensure a successful internal launch. Our system is set up in a variety of ways to help you accomplish this.

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We’ve found that the most successful implementations follow a 6-step process.

1. Plan
2. Set Up
3. Vision Cast
4. Train
5. Go-Live
6. Review

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Step 1: Plan

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What problem(s) is Relay solving for your team? With that as a basis, plan a roll-out that will guarantee improvement in those problem areas.

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We recommend scheduling a planning session with key players to review your company’s needs and Relay’s capabilities. Depending on the size of your team, this planning meeting may include management, Director of Preconstruction, Project Controls, Senior Estimators, etc. Ask each person to come prepared with an understanding of Relay’s capacity and the problems they experience that they’d like Relay to solve.  

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In this planning session, we recommend the team decides:

1. ‍A Relay Champion and users. This involves evaluating business needs, strengths, gaps, roles, and responsibilities. It should also involve evaluating the organization’s readiness for change which will help you anticipate questions and mitigate resistance throughout the lifecycle of the internal launch.
2. ‍A roll-out strategy. Create a smart approach to addressing critical strategy components. This includes the stakeholders, communications, training requirements, and project maintenance components that ensure a successful launch.
3. ‍Timeline. What are the milestones and deadlines to a fully implemented vision?
4. ‍Set up needs. What needs to be done to ensure a smooth roll out?
5. ‍Conditions of Success. With a clear sense of the problems being solved at your company, what does success look like? By setting specific, measurable success metrics, your team can prove the value of the Relay rollout.

Step 2: Set Up

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Your Relay Champion works to set up any internal documentation, templates or set up required for a team-wide rollout. This may include:

1. Project template or project-specific templates
2. Internal processes and expectations. Documenting procedures and policies – Everyone needs to be rowing from the same boat when it comes to responding to inquiries and implementing corrective actions. Creating and storing these documents provide accountability and reassurance to those who will serve on the front-line of the operations.
3. User accounts
4. Sub list

At any point, your Relay Customer Success manager is available to assist you. Our success is measured by your success, so please reach out.

Step 3: Vision Cast Meeting

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Hold a meeting with all internal Relay users or stakeholders. In this meeting, we suggest you:

1. Share the company’s overall goal and objectives in rolling out Relay.
2. Explain any new processes or expectations that will come with implementing Relay.
3. Delegate responsibilities and timelines.

Step 4: Individual Training              

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Relay is an intuitive system that many users can learn to use sufficiently on their own in less than an hour. Regardless, it’s Relay’s priority to make sure each of our users is fully trained and finding value in the software.

1. When a new user first logs in, he or she will find a guided product walkthrough to orient them to the product and to give initial training.
2. Relay also has an extensive knowledge center where users can access guides and FAQs.
3. We have customer success representatives always a click away too – you can click the intercom button in the bottom right corner of any page in the app to communicate with a person from Relay immediately.
4. Feedback is very important to us. Please use that same intercom button to share thoughts, feature requests, or frustrations with us.

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Reach out to your Relay Customer Success Manager if you need any assistance with training or identifying the most useful features and benefits for kicking off your implementation.

Step 5: Go-Live

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This is when it’s time to launch and execute the plans that were created during the build phase. At this stage, all key stakeholders should become aware of the technology and should gain access to critical information pieces that will enable them to successfully work within the platform.

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Learning and education opportunities must be available at this stage. People will want and need answers to questions, such as:

• How will this new technology impact my work?
• What kind of changes are now required for me daily?
• What new skills or knowledge do I need?

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New measures and expectations for performance should be clearly defined and communicated to everyone during the launch phase. This will ensure you can monitor performance and adoption against a set of standards.

Step 6: Review

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After a six-month period of use, review if your Conditions of Success have been met. If they have, set new ones to further expand your use of Relay. If they haven’t, what iterations can be made?

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Please reach out to your Relay Customer Success Manager with any needs, questions, or to brainstorm ideas. Your success is our success, and we are here to offer tactical or process-oriented support.

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