2024
Optimizing project management through automated reporting tools
Overview
Megaprojects see millions of dollars in wasted spend every year. Their reliance on dated tech and manual processes leads to inaccurate reporting, causing severe project delays and cost overruns. My team worked with a large-scale smart city development in Saudi Arabia to address these inefficiencies. We wanted to create a tool to automate the reporting process, keeping megaprojects on track through faster, more accurate decision support.
My contributions
Product design
User research
The team
x1 Product Designer
x1 Product Lead
x1 Chief Product Officer
x1 Chief Technology Officer
x3 Engineers
Timeframe
Feb 2024 - May 2024
The problem space
The timeline for construction projects has three distinct phases, with the majority (around 90%) of total project costs isolated to the “Build” phase where construction operations fully commence. During this stage, unforeseen delays lead to millions in cost overruns, highlighting the importance of our primary stakeholders: Project Managers, who manage daily construction operations and risk prevention, and Project Directors, who handle high-level decision-making to ensure projects remain on track.
Discovery research
So what exactly was making our stakeholders’ lives so difficult? To find out, we conducted 66 discovery interviews with Project Managers & Directors, gathering detailed answers and personal stories that helped us deeply understand their most acute pains.
We found that the biggest problem for Project Managers & Directors was manual data collection and inaccurate reporting. These issues created bottlenecks that snowballed into unforeseen project delays and wasted spending.
After several rounds of concept testing with our primary stakeholders to test the general desirability of our ideas, we identified their primary needs as autonomous data collection and improved decision support.
Project Managers face significant cognitive load from manual data handling, struggling to make sense of all the information they need to compile for their reports. Project Directors struggle to analyze data from multiple sources without a centralized location, making it difficult to accurately predict risk and protect project timelines.
Design
Construction projects are complex and influenced by numerous variables such as site conditions, resource usage, and work productivity. Initially, we made many assumptions without knowing which data sources were truly necessary.
To overcome this hurdle, I analyzed many different progress reports created for other megaprojects to identify common, essential data types. Using these insights, I designed our report engine, and prototype tests with our primary stakeholders validated that these data points were critical to decision-making.
Why AI?
An AI co-pilot became an integral piece of our solution as Project Managers & Directors struggled to parse large amounts of data efficiently. Its inclusion reduces the significant time and effort required to manually collect and analyze information, enabling our stakeholders to reach informed decisions faster.
Mobile view
We wanted Project Managers to be able to access our solution from anywhere, as they are often on the move making daily rounds across various construction sites.
The solution
Through iterative design and testing, we were able to de-risk our early-stage solution ideas and best identify product market fit. We created an intelligent reporting system that could autonomously go through vast amounts of data to help our stakeholders:
Highlight relevant information crucial to project outcomes
1.
Identify risks specific to the roles of primary stakeholders
2.
Gain actionable insights to keep projects on track
3.
Outcome
Our product has been well received, and we have secured pilot interest with several major contractors around the world. MVP development is currently underway and the testing roadmap continues for value propositions and features.