In short
Run construction progress by stage: give each stage dates, a checklist, the materials it draws and one assignee at a time, keep every hand-over of a stage or checklist line with who passed it and when, let the person doing the work report it finished, and count progress only from what your side has approved.
Excavation, footing, plinth, the slabs one by one, masonry, plaster, flooring, finishing. Every builder and contractor already thinks of a building this way. The trouble is that the plan lives on a chart in the site office, and what is actually happening lives in phone calls.
Make the stage the unit of work
Give each stage a start and end date and break it into a short checklist: shuttering, steel, inspection, casting, curing. Progress on the stage is then simply the share of lines that are done, which is a number everyone can read the same way, rather than a percentage somebody estimates on a call.
Keep every hand-over
A stage is assigned to someone: one of your own staff, a working partner, or a sub-contractor. Then it moves. The engineer gives the plaster stage to a sub-contractor, who hands one floor back because a second team is free. Each move should be kept: from whom, to whom, by whom and when. Recording only who has it now loses exactly the information you need when something goes wrong: how it got there.
Tie material to the stage
Each stage draws on the site’s stock: so many bags of cement, so much steel, so many bricks. Write that allotment on the stage. When a sub-contractor needs more, the request should arrive against the stage, with a quantity, and wait for the office to approve it or offer a different number. Material that goes out against a stage can be compared with what the stage was supposed to use; material that simply goes out cannot.
A diary line a day
Alongside the stages, keep a short daily diary per site: what was worked on, which stage, anything worth remembering. It takes a minute, and three months later it is the only record of why a slab was cast a week late.
The chart on the wall
- Progress is somebody’s estimate
- Who has it now, if anyone remembers
- Material goes out to the site
- "It is done" on a phone call
Stages as records
- Progress is approved checklist lines
- Every hand-over with names and dates
- Material goes out against a stage
- Reported finished, then approved
Sitegride keeps each site’s timeline as stages with checklists, materials and an assignee, records every hand-over permanently, lets a sub-contractor report a line finished or ask for material from their own login, and counts progress from approvals. The diary sits on the same site.
Questions this answers
Give each stage dates and a short checklist, and count progress as the share of checklist lines your side has approved as done. That gives a figure everyone reads the same way, instead of an estimated percentage.
Allot material to each stage, and have requests for more arrive against that stage with a quantity, approved or countered by the office. Comparing what went out against what the stage should use shows overuse while it can still be corrected.
Someone on your side who has checked the work. The person doing the work can report it finished, but progress should count only what has been approved, so reported-but-unchecked work becomes the week’s inspection list.
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