Project Team Leaders: Ana Mikelić and Hana Kevilj

Hotel Grand Villa Argentina in Dubrovnik is a well-regarded luxury property on the Adriatic coast where the investor has initiated an ambitious reconstruction and expansion project. This endeavour involves modernizing existing buildings, adding new facilities (such as a wellness centre beneath the current foundations), and preserving the villa's historical heritage and surrounding gardens. 

As project leaders, we face daily challenges in coordinating a large number of participants in projects like this. Architects, investors, contractors, and consultants bring their questions, decisions, and tasks to the table, and our role is to ensure that all this information is clearly structured, easily accessible, and up-to-date. We needed a platform that could provide us with a systematic and efficient way to manage all meetings without losing information or relying on endless email chains. That's where the Meetings module in VOLUM3 comes in.

Efficiency Over Traditional Methods

As it usually goes on projects like this, each week brought up new questions, technical issues, changes to project documentation, and alignment with various stakeholders. Traditional tools like handwritten notes, Excel sheets, or email chains just couldn’t keep up with this project's swift pace and complexity, so we needed a reliable system to track discussions, tasks, and decisions while ensuring nothing got lost in communication.

Now, each meeting begins with creating an agenda in VOLUM3, where we define topics, assign responsibilities, and estimate discussion times. This helps us maintain focus and prevents time loss due to digressions. During meetings, we record key decisions and tasks in real-time, visible to all participants, while unresolved topics can be easily carried over to the next meeting without rewriting. Afterwards, minutes are automatically generated and shared as editable PDFs, simplifying distribution and archiving.

Everyday Advantages of Using Meetings

While using the Meetings module for the Hotel Argentina project, we noticed several concrete advantages over traditional methods. Instead of searching through old emails or relying on personal notes, all information is stored in VOLUM3 — accessible, organized, and version-controlled. Responsibilities are assigned clearly, and tasks can be commented on or updated within the same system. On-site, we often attach photos and sketches to tasks, significantly aiding problem-solving and decision-making.

This module ensures that all decisions made during meetings are tracked without fear of anything being forgotten. Afterwards, everyone involved receives notifications about task updates linked to specific meetings, which enhances accountability and precision in fulfilling agreed-upon obligations. This method proves especially valuable during intense project phases when synchronization is critical.

Improved Workflow with updated Meetings

Some of the new functionalities like selecting multiple topics or tasks simultaneously, transferring or copying them to another meeting, and additional right-click options further improved our user experience. These small but significant upgrades make managing meetings faster and easier, boosting team productivity. Additionally, simple filtering of unresolved topics ensures that no critical point is overlooked — which we all know is essential for projects with numerous parallel activities.

If It’s Not Recorded in VOLUM3, It Didn’t Happen

We often joke that if it’s not recorded in VOLUM3, it didn’t happen. This statement best describes how essential this tool has become in our daily work, especially on big projects like Hotel Argentina in Dubrovnik. Once accustomed to this way of working, reverting to old methods is no longer an option. We love to use the Meetings module because it gives us confidence that all aspects of the project are under control while enabling us to work faster, more accurately, and with greater confidence.