How Barton Malow Project Teams are Using Clearstory to Eliminate Risk, Strengthen Forecasting, and Reduce COR Processing Time

Founded nearly a century ago, Barton Malow has become one of the nation’s most respected General Contractors, delivering billions of dollars in work each year across sectors like sports, healthcare, higher education, and energy. With growth and scale came projects of immense complexity: multi-phase stadium renovations, cutting-edge hospital expansions, and fast-track commercial builds involving dozens of trade partners.

Like every GC operating at this level, Barton Malow faced the challenge of navigating the status quo workflows for Change Orders. The problem wasn’t unique to Barton Malow’s teams, it was endemic across the construction industry. Too often, Change Orders were managed through scattered emails, one-off logs, paper T&M tickets, and disconnected financial systems, a patchwork process that could be slow, error-prone, and reactive.

As Senior Project Engineer Heather Gould explains, “Most everything was email, sent whenever, to whoever, with whatever attached. Forecasting meant searching your inbox, hoping you caught everything, or cross-checking logs you knew weren’t complete.” She adds that the constant scramble often left her spending 20 to 30 hours a week just dealing with Change Orders.

For Project Manager Christian Horn, the frustration was just as acute. “For each one of the PMs, it was at least 10, 15, 20 hours a week,” he says. “And then for me, trying to track down information and gather all of the backup, it’s 10 to 15 hours as well.”

Project Manager Malachi Hays recalls the same challenges from his earlier projects. “Trying to keep track of all that backup through emails or paper tickets was a huge headache. You might not even realize something was missed until months later, when a subcontractor comes back with costs you weren’t expecting.”

Across Barton Malow, the story was consistent: the industry standard workflows for Change Orders (built on emails, manual logs, and stacks of paper) simply didn’t match the Barton Malow culture of precision and continuous improvement.

Recognizing that status quo Change Order processes were slowing projects and creating risk, Barton Malow convened a Kaizen event dedicated entirely to Change Management. The company’s leaders wanted to confront head-on the reality that emails, spreadsheets, and paper tickets were no longer keeping pace with the frequency and complexity of Change Orders.

Out of that initiative emerged a clear answer: Clearstory.

Developed by former contractors to rescue projects still grappling with manual Change Order processes and paperdriven workflows, Clearstory’s core product is a shareable, cloud-based Change Order Log that creates instant transparency between stakeholders and features simple but powerful work streams to capture field-directed extra work, conduct pricing exercises, manage allowances, and streamline Change Order review in real-time.

The benefits of adopting Clearstory were felt immediately. On Phase 2 of the Cincinnati Open project, Gould says the platform reduced her processing time by up to 66% while giving her a single, organized source of truth. “The same things I was doing in 20–30 hours I’m probably doing in 10,” she says. “It’s all in one spot, so you don’t have to second-guess where the last conversation was. It cut down on our time so much on that project.”

Horn reports similar savings across his teams. “Again, for each PM, it was at least 10 to 15 to 20 hours a week,” he says. “For me, another 10 to 15 trying to track things down. Clearstory brings it down to five. And during our internal cost meetings every week, we can just go straight down through Clearstory and see the status of everything at a glance.”

For Sweeny, the time savings shows up in day-to-day routines. “We have bi-weekly PM meetings on this project, and before the meeting I just go into the Change Order Log and see who owes me what,” he explains. “It’s very easy.”

Hays emphasizes how Clearstory eliminates closeout headaches. “You’ll never see another stack of 50 T&M tickets on my desk again,” he says. “I can filter by subcontractor, print a couple reports, and I know I’ve checked all my boxes. My sub’s happy, I’m happy, and we’re signed off, we’re closed.”

And for executives like Barton Malow Director of Ohio Operations Jerry Mullins, Clearstory provides a new level of confidence. “When we give the owner a Change Order log, we want it to be 100% accurate,” he said. “Clearstory gives us that confidence. It makes my project managers’ jobs easier. They love it, so if they’re not complaining, I’m happier. Honestly, it’s one of the better systems we’ve been able to implement in the last couple years.”

At Barton Malow, Clearstory has moved beyond being just another software tool. It has become an integral part of how the GC manages Change Order risk, aligns with subcontractors, and delivers projects more predictably. By eliminating wasted hours, reducing errors, and creating true transparency, Clearstory is helpling Barton Malow to focus talent where it matters most: building complex projects on time and on budget.

As Heather Gould put it, “Having a project that in general is going to use Change Orders, I would suggest that every project use Clearstory because it’s going to make your life easier, it’s going to make things go faster. For me it is a no-brainer.”