The First Scheduling Tool That Actually Worked for Superintendents

Overview

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Bradley Wiggins spent more than 30 years as a construction superintendent before retiring from the industry. Over that time, he watched the industry evolve from paper schedules to Excel spreadsheets to enterprise CPM scheduling tools like Primavera P6. During his time at Garney Construction, he experienced firsthand how Planera changed the way field teams managed schedules.

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But despite all the advances in construction technology, one thing never really changed: scheduling software still wasn't built for the people actually running work in the field.

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For Bradley, scheduling was always something that required extra effort: updating spreadsheets manually, rebuilding timelines every week, or relying on tools that felt overly complex for day-to-day field operations.

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When Garney Construction introduced Planera, Bradley expected more of the same. Instead, he found something different: a scheduling platform that finally matched how field teams actually work.

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Today, Garney continues to use Planera across its field teams, empowering superintendents to take ownership of the project schedule. Bradley's experience reflects the broader approach the company continues to take toward collaborative, field-driven scheduling.

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The Challenge

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Before Planera, Bradley managed schedules using Excel spreadsheets and short-term look-ahead plans.

"We would do an Excel spreadsheet and update maybe a 3- or 4-week look-ahead. Once you got past that, it became very cumbersome."

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Every update required manually shifting dates, adjusting dependencies, and rebuilding portions of the schedule. Looking beyond a few weeks ahead often created more work than value.

Traditional CPM tools like Primavera P6 weren't much better from a field perspective.

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The result was a persistent gap between project schedules and field execution. Schedules existed, but they weren't truly operational tools for the people leading work in real time. Bradley needed something simpler, a scheduling platform field teams could actually own and use.

Why Planera and How the Team Used It

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Bradley initially approached Planera with skepticism. He assumed it was "kind of a P6-based program," and that it would come with the same complexity he'd experienced before. What he found instead was the opposite.

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Weekly updates became effortless

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Because Planera automatically maintained task relationships, changing one date cascaded through the entire schedule instantly. What had been a time-consuming weekly rebuild became a routine, single-touch adjustment.

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"If something backed up or moved forward, I could change one date and everything updated."

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Long-term planning became practical

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For the first time, Bradley could look 3, 4, even 5 months ahead without adding complexity, and proactively manage the full project arc rather than reacting week to week.

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"I always knew where I was trying to head, what I could push forward, and what I could accelerate."

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Equipment coordination improved

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By associating equipment directly with scheduled tasks, Bradley gave project managers clearer visibility into future equipment usage and projected costs.

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‍"I associated all the equipment needed with each task. The PMs loved that because they could project equipment usage and costs."

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The whole team worked from the same schedule

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Bradley shared the live schedule with his general foremen, giving them direct access to update their own tasks in real time. Instead of schedules living in isolated spreadsheets, the entire field team “could work within the live schedule," making it the single source of truth.

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The Results

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By using Planera, Bradley and his team gained faster schedule updates, better long-term visibility, stronger team coordination, improved PM alignment, and more professional owner-facing communication.

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"It always kept me updated and on track to where I needed to be. It saved me time, and that's a big deal."