Project controls
A regular, checkable answer to a single question: is the project on plan. And if not — by how much, because of what, and what to do about it.
Progress reports come from the same people whose work those reports assess.
Meetings open with an argument about whose figures are right, and there is no time left for decisions.
The data exists, but in five spreadsheets held by five people, and they do not reconcile.
A problem is visible on site today and reaches the investor's report a month later.
One set of metrics
An agreed set of indicators and the rules for calculating them. A number means the same thing to the contractor, the client and the investor's report.
Weekly status
What was done, what was planned, where the gap is and which decisions are needed. A short document people read rather than file.
Monthly investor report
Time, money, physical progress, risk and forecast in one document, structured the same way month after month so it can be compared.
Quantity verification on site
An independent measure of what has been built before it reaches a payment certificate. The basis for paying for what was actually done.
Photo records
Images tied to activities and dates. Six months later this is the only way to establish what the site looked like on a given day.
Risk and issue register
What could go wrong, what already has, who owns it and by when — kept with its history, not only in its latest revision.
Dashboard
A panel the client has access to: the current state of the project without requesting a report and without waiting for one.
- 1
Deciding what is measured
Indicators, data sources and calculation rules are agreed before collection starts, rather than after the first argument about the numbers.
- 2
Data collection
A procedure: who submits what, when, and in what form. Without one, reporting rests on particular people remembering.
- 3
Verification on site
Sample or full measurement of quantities, reconciliation against what was claimed, photo records.
- 4
Reporting cycle
Weekly for managing the work, monthly for the investor. Variances are explained in the same document that shows them.
- 5
Decisions and follow-up
Every variance gets a decision, an owner and a date. The next cycle checks that the decision was carried out.
A report nobody has to ask for
The client logs in and sees the current state directly: schedule, spend, physical progress, site photo records. The meeting starts with decisions instead of establishing whose data is more recent.
See what it looks like- How is this different from construction supervision?
- Supervision answers whether the work is built correctly: quality, compliance with the design and with codes. Project controls answer whether the project is on plan: time, quantities, money, risk. They are different jobs, both are often needed, and we offer them separately.
- Why verify quantities when there are payment certificates?
- A certificate is what the contractor has claimed. Verification confirms that the claimed work was in fact done, and in the quantity stated. The gap between those two figures is exactly why verification happens before signature rather than after.
- Does this duplicate the contractor's own reporting?
- The contractor keeps records for their own purposes and remains an interested party in the outcome. Project controls keep records on the client's behalf under agreed rules. It is not a duplicate but a second vantage point — which is the whole reason for doing it.
- How long does it take to set up?
- The first report usually lands in two to three weeks: about a week to agree indicators and sources, then one or two for a full collection and verification cycle. On a project already under construction, that first cycle almost always turns up gaps against what was assumed to be known.
We run the whole project, but any single task can be taken on its own.
Ready to take your project under control?
Tell us about the task — within 1–2 days we will prepare a team structure, a roadmap and a commercial proposal.