When I run three sites at once, I want to know where things are going wrong without being at all three, so I do not find out when it has to be torn out and redone.

Job context

Who

A contractor running three to five sites in parallel

When

Daily, and worst on days spent travelling

Trigger

An item built wrong and torn out

Situation

Site information arrives by phone calls and scattered photos

Constraints

One person cannot be in three places, and crews do not write things down

5 Pains

• Site information arrives in fragments

  High

  Photos sit in three different chats and nobody consolidates them.

  Root cause: Each site spawns its own communication channel

• Mistakes surface only after being covered

  High

  What is covered is the most expensive thing to redo.

  Root cause: There is no mandatory check before covering up

• Crews do not report problems; they improvise

  High

  The on-the-spot fix may be right or very wrong, and nobody knows until later.

  Root cause: Reporting a problem sounds like admitting you cannot handle it

• Materials delivered to the wrong site

  Medium

  One misdelivery stops a crew for a day.

  Root cause: Phone ordering leaves no record

• Homeowners call the crew directly

  Medium

  Changes get agreed outside the contractor's knowledge.

  Root cause: The homeowner lives on the site

5 Desired Outcomes

• See all three sites in one place

  Functional

• Have a check before anything is covered

  Functional

• Crews report instead of improvising

  Social

• Know every change the homeowner agreed

  Functional

• Leave a site without unease

  Emotional

5 Existing Solutions

A solution is not the same thing as a product — a customer can hire a behaviour or a workaround too.

• Construction management software

  Product

  Solves the problem and requires crews to enter data, which small teams never sustain.

• One chat group per site

  Workaround

  The trade's real management system, unsearchable after three weeks.

• Visit each site every morning

  Behaviour

  The most effective method, and it hard-caps how many sites can run.

• Require photos before covering up

  Workaround

  Contractors build the inspection step no process requires.

• Name a lead on each site

  Service

  The only thing that actually scales, requiring extra pay for a role with no name.

2 Opportunity Gaps

• Homeowners agree changes directly with the crew, and neither party considers recording it their job.

  Why existing solutions fail: The homeowner lives on site so the conversation is the most natural thing in the world, while every recording system sits with the contractor, who is not there.

  Potential opportunity: A way to record a change on the spot, by whoever is standing there, in under a minute.

• Construction software demands exactly what a small crew lacks: someone to enter the data.

  Why existing solutions fail: The software is designed for large contractors with a coordination function; in a small crew the data-entry person is the one holding the trowel.

  Potential opportunity: Building the site picture from what crews already produce — photos in the chat — instead of asking for more input.