iProjects Advantage › Knowledge Base
iProjects comes with an extensive design management knowledge base. In the Australian version, this database is keyed to Australian Institute of Architects Advisory Notes and other documents (such as the BDP Environment Design Manual), relevant Australian Standards, and construction contracts widely used in Australia.
The iProjects knowledge base is built around the CHECKIT System originally created by Charles Nelson, LFRAIA, AIA, for the RAIA in 1986, originally used by thousands of Australian practices. The CHECKIT system has been incorporated into the office manuals and quality systems of many hundreds of Australian practices. Now in its 4th generation of development, CHECKIT has grown to include templates for more recent developments such as Green Star and Environmentally Sustainable Development (ESD) programs, Building Information Modelling (BIM), and the more recent Risk & Safety laws enacted in QLD.
iProjects uses the CHECKIT structure to create templates for “Best Practice” – the system is shipped with best practice pre-configured, that is fully and easily customizable by the practice, to suit any combination of project type templates.
iProjects also features the TeamWork database, a gap/overlap prevention structure for project management, originally created by Charles Nelson for Denton Corker Marshall in the 1980’s. Now expanded and fully automated, TeamWork tracks a broad array of tasks that can be performed by more than one consultant, and organises these into a flexible and customizable structure for assigning and tracking responsibilities across the whole design team.
A critically important feature of the iProjects Knowledge Base is that it supports and “backstops” younger and less experienced staff; simultaneously teaching them the issues they need to understand, and protecting the practice from mistakes they might make through inexperience.
For example, a user does not need to understand a form of construction contract in order to use the system – all they need to do is to select that form of contract with a single tick mark when they create a new project, and the entire set of applicable checklists will be auto-configured for that construction contract. The same is true for auto-configuring the entire checklist system for QM, BIM, Green Star, ESD, and Risk-related project requirements.
Knowledge resource information will, of course, evolve over time, as standards change, new and better ways are found to do things, and as we learn from users. The Knowledge Base will be updated at regular intervals, provided in a matrix to allow practices to review the update suggestions, and incorporate the new information selectively as they choose.
New customers are provided with the current version of the Knowledge Base, shipped with the software.
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for each. The completed Plan can be used to create the project budget, or to confirm the cost of completing each of the Tasks and Stages in the project budget.