Timberlake Accelerates Collaborative Scheduling and Pre-Construction with Planera

Timberlake is a commercial construction firm with a rich history dating back to its founding in 1976. The company focuses heavily on commercial projects ranging from $5 million to $20 million, with their largest ongoing project valued at $100 million. Timberlake specializes in K-12 and collegiate schools, sports facilities, military depots, and significant work for tribal nations across their region.

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CHALLENGES

Outdated Tools, Growing Complexity

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To support its portfolio of complex commercial projects, Timberlake needed to modernize its scheduling workflow. When evaluating their historical methods, the team faced several significant challenges with legacy software:

• Steep Learning Curves: The company relied almost exclusively on Microsoft Project for master schedules and Excel for four-week look-aheads. While power users could navigate these tools, the complexity created a steep learning curve for site superintendents and field personnel who needed to execute the building.
• Siloed Management: Because legacy tools were so complex, schedules were typically managed solely by project managers. These schedules often lacked the practical, real-world sense required by the field teams.
• Overly Complex Software: For certain projects, Timberlake utilized Primavera P6, but found it cumbersome. P6 was viewed as a tool that "does too much"—likened to a complex, expensive Ferrari that is intimidating to the average driver.
• Impending Sunsets: With Microsoft planning to sunset the online version of Project, Timberlake recognized an urgent need to transition to a modern, schedule-centric alternative.

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SOLUTION

Embracing Planera for Collaborative Scheduling

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Timberlake fully transitioned to Planera, leveraging its intuitive, whiteboard-style interface to lower the barrier to entry for their entire team. Planera is now actively used across the company for everything from pre-construction estimating to collaborative field execution.

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Key Benefits of Planera

• Visualization of Float: Planera helps the field visualize concepts like float, which is often a "lost concept" in construction. On their $8 million Cassidy Sai Theater project, the team can visually see they are 24 days ahead of schedule, which actively motivates them to maintain their margin of safety.
• Collaborative Trailer Updates: For the $100 million Belle Isle High School project, the schedule is displayed on large TVs in the job trailer. During weekly updates, the entire team—from senior project managers to newer field staff—contributes directly to the canvas, allowing everyone to inspect the critical path visually.
• Pre-Construction Efficiency: Timberlake utilizes Planera to build pre-made, modular templates for standard Work Breakdown Structures (WBS) like asphalt paving. What previously took several days to build for preliminary schedules can now be completed in just a couple of hours.
• Clear Owner Reporting: Planera allows Timberlake to filter schedules for a "big ticket milestone watch list." This makes it easy to visually represent the cause and effect of weather or owner delays, helping them "tell their story" to owners much more effectively than a standard Gantt chart.
• Intuitive for Field Personnel: The point-and-click, drag-and-drop interface appeals heavily to the "app generation" of field personnel, removing the friction of cumbersome, outdated spreadsheets.

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RESULTS

Greater Efficiency and Team Alignment

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By integrating Planera, Timberlake achieved a more robust scheduling process and transformed how their teams collaborate on job sites.

• High-Speed Pre-Con: Modular templates have drastically reduced the time required to build preliminary proposal schedules from several days to a couple of hours.
• Field-Driven Success: Projects like the Cassidy Sai Theater are running 24 days ahead of schedule because field teams can easily visualize their progress and float.
• True Team Involvement: Scheduling is no longer the sole responsibility of the project manager. It is a collaborative team skill where everyone, regardless of prior software training, understands and utilizes the schedule.

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Conclusion

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‍Planera’s simplified UI and visual approach removed the friction of legacy tools, empowering Timberlake's field teams and pre-construction estimators alike. By making the scheduling process approachable, Timberlake has successfully unified their teams, replacing outdated spreadsheets and complex legacy systems with a modern, collaborative foundation for their multi-million dollar projects.