Breaking New Ground

Janis is an award-winning journalist and editor who has covered many industries beyond project management, including health care, financial services, higher education and retail sales.

  Portfolio Management   ProjectsAtWork  

Investing in business improvements and a project portfolio management tool helped land development firm Abbey Road Group thrive despite the economic turmoil in real estate.

Across the nation, thousands of small companies in real estate and related services businesses haven’t survived the harrowing downturn in the market. Abbey Road Group is not one of those companies. The Puyallup, Wash.-based land development firm used the difficult period to make an investment in better project management processes and automation. And now the company can report a productivity gain of 200 percent, comparing January 2008, when the market started to go south, with the present.

Better yet, the project management improvements have created tighter relationships with customers and a new business line. Forgive the pun, but there’s a lot developing with this developer.

Developing Efficiency

Back in 2007, Abbey Road was using a mishmash of tools to manage projects, including Microsoft Excel, Outlook and Project, but executives weren’t satisfied with the results. They were convinced they could wring more efficiency out of the staff of engineers and project managers. So they set out to overhaul Abbey Road’s approach by bringing on a comprehensive project portfolio management tool suited to the unique land management niche.

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