CCC Group Inc is an award winning company specializing in comprehensive industrial construction services. They cover concrete, steel, piping, electric and custom fabrication. The company handles projects from preconstruction through commissioning, with typical project timelines ranging from 6 months to 2 years and budgets in the multi-million dollar range.
Recent accomplishments include ranking #12 among Top 15 Contractors in Mining and receiving multiple Highwire Platinum Safety Awards and ABC National Platinum S.T.E.P. Awards.
Industry: Industrial Construction
Company Size: Multi-million dollar projects, 5+ year operations
Challenge: Lack of uniform skill sets and planning practices across the company’s new and previous hires
Solution: Plan Academy’s on-demand project controls training
The Challenge: Inconsistent Planning Practices Across Teams
Michael Swink, Corporate Schedule Manager at CCC Group Inc., faced a common industry challenge:
With team members spread across multiple locations and time zones, traditional training methods weren’t meeting the company’s growing needs for standardized, high-quality project controls education.
They needed to find a way to improve efficiency in planning by having the same expectation of skills and deliverables for all planners, whether new hires or established planners.
“Perceived value derived from planning and scheduling varied broadly across different teams, where some did not leverage the potential of mature and consistent project management practices.”
Before discovering Plan Academy, CCC Group relied heavily on on-the-job training and internal mentorship for developing scheduling capabilities. While this approach worked to some degree, Swink notes it “lacked consistency and scalability. It was effective in pockets, but not across the board.”
"Plan Academy stood out for its depth of content, real-world examples, and focus on practical application. The Platform is intuitive and the support has been excellent."
- Michael Swink | Corporate Schedule Manager, CCC Group Inc.
The Solution: Upgrading all planners to the same skill set, without additional overhead or time requirements
Looking for a solution, CCC Group discovered Plan Academy through YouTube while researching ways to improve their scheduling training.
What made Plan Academy stand out was its “depth of content, real-world examples, and focus on practical application. The platform is intuitive, and the support has been excellent,” according to Swink.
The on-demand format proved particularly valuable for CCC Group’s distributed workforce, allowing team members to learn at their own pace while maintaining consistency across all locations.
The Results: Stronger Foundation, Faster Onboarding, Better Project Delivery, Improved Project Planning Efficiency
“The training has significantly improved our ability to plan projects more efficiently,” Swink reports. “We also adopted new tools and methodologies that have assisted in streamlining workflows.”
Accelerated Team Skill Building
The on-demand format delivered immediate benefits: “It allows our team to learn at their own pace, revisit complex topics, and apply new skills immediately. It’s also helped us onboard new schedulers faster and more effectively.”
Enhanced Future Success
Perhaps most importantly, the training created lasting organizational change. “It’s created a stronger foundation for our planning culture,” Swink explains. “With a more skilled and confident team, we’re better positioned to anticipate risks, optimize resources, and scale operations as we grow.”
Internal Training Beats External Hiring
Swink emphasized the strategic advantage of this strategy: “Internal training builds loyalty, institutional knowledge, and consistency. While hiring skilled professionals is important, developing talent from within ensures alignment with our company’s processes and culture.”
The Strategic Importance of Early Scheduling Education
Swink advocates for early scheduling education in project management careers: “Scheduling and time management are fundamental aspects of any project execution strategy. Enforcing their importance and appropriately training team members is one of the traditional project triple constraints and is one more step towards operational excellence.”
When so much time and effort is put into hiring, make the most of those hires and their potential within the organization.
Key Takeaways
- Consistency at Scale: On-demand training solved the challenge of delivering consistent education across multiple locations and time zones
- Practical Application: Real-world examples and hands-on content enabled immediate application of new skills
- Cultural Transformation: Training didn’t just improve individual skills—it strengthened the entire organization’s planning culture
- Faster Onboarding: New team members could get up to speed more quickly and effectively
- Strategic Advantage: Internal development created stronger loyalty and better alignment with company processes