Video transcript:

00:01 Hello, welcome to another ClickUp setup tutorial. This one is for all the real estate developers out there. So we're going to create a pre-construction project plan for site development.

00:11 We're going to use a little bit of AI. And in this video, you're going to, uh, see or, or learn how to make, or, or, uhm, yeah, create a comprehensive pre-construction project plan template in ClickUp, making sure we're capturing all the crucial steps.

00:27 So we're going to do folder and a list, we're going to do some statuses. Tasks and checklists or subtasks. We're going to talk about that.

00:34 We're going to use AI to do it as well. I think that's an important part of the workflow. We're going to create the list as a template, and then you're going to enjoy life.

00:41 Uh, that's the goal here. Who am I'm Jed, I'm founder of Hydrant. Our project managers put out the fire so your team can execute with ease.

00:48 Uh, we're awesome project managers and ClickUp setup experts and software engineers, and, uh, just people who get things done. I've been called a fixer, so that's fun.

00:59 We're official cook up. We're partners. We do a lot of work in ClickUp and we love seeing teams optimize across the software.

01:05 It's really powerful. Um, all right, let's get into it. Okay, first, um, I wanted to start from scratch here this time, so I'm going to create a folder.

01:17 And this one we're going to call site development. Or maybe you'll call it, um, because maybe we have a few different, let's do, let's call this preconstruction.

01:28 And, um, for statuses, uh, I want to use a different template. I wonder if we have one existing that we could use.

01:42 What is this home building status? This is kind of cool. I forgot I had this. Um, that's kind of cool.

01:48 Um, man, we have so many different templates. Um, so let's start here and I'm wondering this may not be the right set of statuses.

02:00 But I think, I think this is good for now. Maybe we want to delete this one. you know, we're not going to be in construction here, so maybe we delete that.

02:14 Uh, maybe we have one that's like, you know, trying to think like what temp, what statuses would we actually need?

02:23 Let's ask Claude. Let's say I'm a site developer developer I'm working on pre-construction and approvals for a hundred acre property in Wyoming.

02:42 It's going to have residential, industrial, and plenty of master planning. Help me create a simple list of statuses and click up, that comes up.

03:01 That works well for pre-construction. Let's see how that does. I really think it's important to use AI to be able to kind of like make sure that we're using this effectively.

03:14 It just, it helps so much to make sure you're kind of not missing anything. So I like this. They're saying not started in progress on hold, waiting approval approved, You know, that's, that's pretty good.

03:25 Honestly, it's pretty basic status list. Um, so I'm going to copy these. Let's go in here. Um, we got here, that's honestly this, and honestly, I'd rather just use an existing workflow that we have.

03:42 And if it ends up not working, great. So let's, let's use this status on pre-construction. Now it comes pre-loaded with the list.

03:50 Uh, let's do the status from, um, yeah, that's all I think it's just, this is our basic status list.

04:04 Now the question is, like, well, let's say, you know, this is a little bit of a question of hierarchy, um, pre-construction, and maybe we'd have, like, a different list for each project.

04:14 I think that's the way I would do it on any kind of, like, substantive construction project, uh, or, like, master plan community where you have multiple homes, you have multiple warehouses, whatever it is.

04:23 Uh, I would have list for each project. So for this one, I might rename this. Usually I like the address, like, a simple version of the address is a great way to remember construction project names.

04:37 So I might call this 101 Thampson. And, uh, now, now my question is, what is the full-on pre-construction checklist? Um, and let's go back to, help me create a comprehensive list of tasks that need to be done for pre-construction.

05:01 I'm going being in mind entitlements, surveys, design, uh, and anything else commercial real estate development. I like Claude, uh, you know, it's October 2024 right now.

05:24 We've chatted to BT a lot over the last year, but we kind of switched to Claude because it's just been a Thank you for And so powerful.

05:33 As you can see here, it's creating a pretty amazing list. And I like starting with a maximalist list and then pairing it down from there.

05:41 I think that's kind of the move. Um, creates many tasks as you can. And then cut stuff out if it doesn't matter.

05:48 Um, you know, that that's really worth doing, especially in a big project. So, uh, because you don't, I think that one of the big risks in project management, especially if you haven't done a project before, is, uh, forgetting things or not.

06:01 . Knowing you need to do something or, you know, whatever it is. So, I'm gonna, we're gonna go line by line and create a task.

06:09 Um, and I think what we're gonna do is, I don't usually like subtasks, but we're gonna use subtasks today. So, first, we're gonna do site analysis and do diligence.

06:20 Let's go in here. And, sorry, my phone's ringing. Hit save. And then, if I want to create a subtask, I'm gonna go here.

06:30 And I'm gonna go back to the next list. And I'm gonna copy paste and click up so cool. Create nine tasks.

06:42 Voila. We're done. So, I really like this. Uh, you know, because what this is, is a, like, this is really kind of like a noun, right?

06:56 Or, it's, it's not quite an action. Site analysis and do diligence. It's almost like a deliverable. It's almost So, So, when you're thinking hierarchy of task versus subtask, this is a great task.

07:06 And then you'll notice every single one of these subtasks has a verb to start. So, when I assign this to someone, they are going to have to conduct a preliminary site visit.

07:20 So, and you're gonna put a date. And then, one thing that I always like to do is add, um, show-head.

07:27 I like to show, the latest, . . . comment. And I also, for this one, I think, you know, if we wanted to start having dependencies, maybe we'll do that in another video.

07:40 Dependencies are good for big projects, especially construction, real estate development. You have a critical path. You want to kind of flag those.

07:46 Um, we might want to create a Gantt chart or something like that. And then, I'll, I'll, I'll call this out.

07:52 I really like seeing tone, time, and status. I don't think priority is that important, usually. Um, I'm gonna create this.

07:58 I'm just gonna reshuffle this a little bit. I'm, Love tone, time, and status, because a lot of times what happens with teams is you get stuff that just hangs out.

08:08 And you're like, why is this hanging out? Why is this, why didn't this get done? You know, and one of the things that, for me, is an effective measure of velocity in a team, is how long do tasks fit in status?

08:22 Um, so, if, for whatever reason, it takes us, you know, 12 months to do a traffic impact study. . I would want to be aware of that.

08:34 And especially if we're going to be doing a lot of different projects, that's a really important indicator to know that, hey, this is a really long lead item.

08:42 It's going to take us a long time. Or we have the wrong vendor in place. Or we have some kind of approval that we're dealing with.

08:48 Someone in the city council hates our project and they're shutting us down every single, you know, left and right. So, that's why I like this total time and status.

08:56 Okay, well, let's create the next one. Land acquisition. Okay, now let's get the checklist in for that. Create subtasks. And then copy paste.

09:12 And then create six subtasks. Hopefully saw how I did that. And then let's do the next one again. We're just going to go through this.

09:24 And if you want to fast forward, I don't blame you. Or maybe I should hit pause. Well, I'll hit pause and I'll get this done really quick.

09:29 We'll just do this last one. And then I'll hit pause and do the rest. So again, this is the main task.

09:37 I'm going to hit plus for add subtasks. And then control V. And then create nine tasks. Okay, we're pretty much here now.

09:48 I've copied all of these tasks in here along with these subtasks for a comprehensive preconstruction task list that should work for a hundred acre mixed use development in Wyoming.

09:58 So let's go back here. and I think, so now they're all in here and every task is a task and then we have a subtask.

10:08 And now what I want to do is I want to just read through them a little more closely and see if there's any that are obviously duplicates or get rid of it or something like that.

10:16 So what I'm going to do is right now I'm going to show expand all. Um, so now what I'm doing is I'm seeing all of the, all the tasks for everyone.

10:28 I'm going to make this a little wider just so I can see everything. I think I can actually customize the view, um, where we wrap text.

10:39 So that's kind of a fun little thing as well. So let's just wrap the text so I can see it.

10:44 We can kind of keep everything where it is. You know what, I already kind of need my thing about, uh, total time and status.

10:51 So just for convenience, I'm going to hide that so I can give myself one more space for this view. Okay.

10:57 So that analysis due diligence, real mentor site visit. Okay. Environmental site assessment. Phase one and phase two, potentially. So we could decide maybe we create two tasks for this.

11:08 Geoteck investigation, topographic survey, traffic impact study. You know, some of this might be, um, mixed. So maybe the traffic impact study actually needs to go down here.

11:19 So I'm just going to drag it down. Cool. Um, zoning is land use regulations, you know, investigate significance of the site.

11:30 Market analysis and feasibility study. This all feels pretty good. . Good to me for site analysis and due diligence. Um, so I'm going to leave that there.

11:37 Land acquisition. Okay. Yeah, we got to, to me, this makes sense that land acquisition would come after due diligence. But I think, um, you know, maybe we'll just set up a quick dependency here.

11:48 Uh, so hide dependencies. So now I can kind of like show this. So this, we're going to, uh, now the dependency waiting on site analysis.

12:09 Cool. So now it's showing this as a blocker and showing this as waiting on the dependency. And you may not want to do, may or may not want to do this, but just so you can see how it's done.

12:22 Um, and when you go into it, you can view something, you have dates set up. You would be able to see kind of that stream, that dependency model.

12:29 Um, now, uh, Oh, I'm just for, for brevity, you would want to actually spend time on this, especially since it came from AI.

12:37 Usually it's pretty good, but like, you know, um, like this is your project. If you're investing all this money, all this time, you know, this is AI is great for getting you started.

12:48 It's great for helping you check to see if you're missing anything. Um, but it's always on you as the expert to make sure that you've got it right.

12:57 So maybe we found out that actually we don't need a traffic study at all. That would be cool. . Um, I'm going to hit delete.

13:05 Okay, cool. We don't need that. That's how maybe I would change the plan. I'm going to hit on do because I actually want to save this template to give out to people.

13:13 Um, but, uh, I think that's kind of like a something you'd want to keep in mind as you're kind of going through everything.

13:21 Um, yeah, and I think kind of like one more thought on this. It's really important with, um, project planning, especially larger projects with a lot of dollar value involved.

13:31 Um, I'll see you it's important to understand all the different aspects of the project and, and especially if there's like a, you know, this one, if, you know, the goal of this project is presumably primarily to make money.

13:46 And so I think when people kind of start a project, this is a pitfall I've seen a lot, people don't always appreciate the scope of what they're starting.

13:56 Um, it's like, I, I have this little experience where I started a little main street gym. It's just a small studio for a .

14:02 Personal training. And I think when I started it, I, I put together a bit of a plan, but I really did not appreciate the marketing aspect of what it would take to get a little gym going on, on, on a main street.

14:17 Um, and so that's why this is so important. It's like, yeah, this is overwhelming. That's the point. The point is that this is overwhelming.

14:24 And you need to sort through it and spend the time with your team and go through and think through what do we absolutely need?

14:31 What can we do without? out. And what pieces, what parts of the plan are going to be cost drivers and which parts of the plan are going to be revenue drivers.

14:40 So when you're actually building out your pro forma, you have an idea of how much money you need so you can account for all these different pieces of the plan.

14:48 Especially something like site development, like architecture and engineering that's not cheap. Attorneys aren't cheap. Getting a great, you might have to go through two or three general contractors before you get someone good that you really can work well with.

15:00 So just kind of getting on my soapbox. A little bit there. Um, last thing I'm going to do is I want to save this as a template.

15:07 So, um, how do I do that? I go to here, and I hit this here, and I'm going to go to templates, and I'm going to save as template.

15:20 So now it's a list. So I'm going to go to pre, uh, pre construction project plan. And again, I'm going you I always have dates.

15:34 I like dates. Um, and then I'm going to hit save template here. Cool. So now it's being created, I can share this out.

15:44 So, I think this is so useful just because, like, if you're doing a lot of different, say you're doing a housing development, you might do this for a single house and have a different, you know, a template for each house.

15:56 And then as you meet with your project team, you can go through for each house and make sure that you're really getting everything and assigning out to some.

16:02 I'll see you and, you know, getting dates in there. You can preload dates to dependencies and all that kind of stuff so that when you populate a new template, you have everything.

16:11 So the value of this is you can start to rest easy because you know you've already front loaded so much at the planning.

16:17 And it's going to hopefully reduce a lot of that chaos down the road. Now, of course, things always happen, but if you don't have a plan at all and you're just winging it off the top of your head, you're going to be in a lot more trouble than if you spent the time to go through and actually evaluate

16:24 what are, what are all the different parts of the plan. Um, and then you need to happen. Okay, thanks for watching.

16:35 This has been a lot of fun. Again, I'm Jed. I, you live, you sleep and breathe project management and would love to hear from you if you have specific questions or topics for future videos.

16:44 Thanks so much. Bye.

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