People
Does it have one clear owner, and can it run without depending on one person?
Plumb
Process clear, data not ready. Get the data flowing first.
Four weeks to know where to start, and what it costs you.
You find where value is trapped, name who owns the work, and set the number you plan to improve. Each week answers one question and ends at a gate.
- Length
- 4 weeks
- Your time
- About 2 hours a week
- Week 1
- Free workshop
Week 1 · Find
Where are we losing capacity, speed or resilience?
| Workflow | Capacity | Decisions | Resilience |
|---|---|---|---|
| WIP and cost-to-complete | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Change orders | Yes | Yes | No |
| Owner billing (pay apps) | Yes | No | Yes |
| Subcontractor payments | Yes | No | No |
| Lien waivers and retainage | No | No | Yes |
| Subcontractor compliance | No | No | No |
| Job cost and commitments | Yes | No | No |
| Labor and equipment coding | Yes | No | No |
| Month-end close | Yes | Yes | No |
| Cash forecast | No | Yes | Yes |
Every workflow gets checked against three questions.
Process
Does it have a clear outcome and a repeatable path to get there?
Data
Can people and AI reliably get, understand and trust the data it needs?
One owner per workflowWrite down how the work really runsDon’t fix what isn’t broken
Don’t start the next week until you pass the gate.
Week 1 Find Free workshop
Find where value is trapped
Where are we losing capacity, decision speed or resilience?
- Answer three yes-or-no questions for each of the ten workflows
- Ask AP, billing, project accounting and PMs to do the same
- Ask where their week goes, and which tasks cause the most problems
- Add any workflow they name, then pick your 5
- You hold
- Your top 5 workflows
- Gate
- You can name all 5 and say in one line why each made the list.
Week 2 Own
Name owners and write workflow cards
Who owns each workflow, and how does it really run?
- Name owners and backups, and tell each owner in person
- Each owner writes one card, using a real example from last month
- Read all 5 cards and mark anything that surprised you
- You hold
- 5 owners and 5 workflow cards
- Gate
- Every workflow has one named owner and a card the owner agrees is accurate.
Week 3 Route
Route each workflow
What should we do with each one?
- Run both screens for each workflow with its owner
- Write the verdict: keep, retire, automate, plumb, fix or rebuild
- Choose where to start and tell the team why
- You hold
- A written verdict for each workflow
- Gate
- Every workflow has a verdict, and you’ve chosen where to start.
Week 4 Measure
Set your starting line
Where are we starting from?
- Choose your primary number
- Log real work for one week, or pull last month’s system dates
- Check the numbers with the people who do the work
- Hold a one-hour review with all 5 owners
- Set a date to measure the same number again in 90 days
- You hold
- One primary number, measured from real work
- Gate
- You can state the cost of your top problem and where you’ll start, in one sentence, from your own numbers.
Start from the workflows that run a construction company.
Any workflow with two or more “yes” answers on capacity, decisions or resilience makes the shortlist. Many contractors land on WIP, change orders, billing and cash forecasting.
| # | Workflow | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | WIP and cost-to-complete | Each job’s real margin and cost to finish |
| 2 | Change orders | Getting extra work priced, approved and billed |
| 3 | Owner billing (pay apps) | The monthly pay app out on time with the right backup |
| 4 | Subcontractor payments | Sub invoices approved and paid correctly |
| 5 | Lien waivers and retainage | Right waiver before payment; retainage held and owed |
| 6 | Subcontractor compliance | Insurance, W-9 and licenses current before work or payment |
| 7 | Job cost and commitments | What’s spent and what’s committed on each job |
| 8 | Labor and equipment coding | Field hours and equipment charged to the right job and cost code |
| 9 | Month-end close | Closing the books on time with reconciled accounts |
| 10 | Cash forecast | Cash position for the coming weeks |
One owner. One page on how the work really runs.
The workflow card is a one-page operating procedure. The owner writes it with the people who do the work, walking through one real example from last month.
AI tools need the same things a new hire needs: a clear outcome, the rules to follow, and what to do when something goes wrong. Your workflow cards hold all three.
Subcontractor payments
Workflow cardPeople
- Owner and backup
- AP manager; backup is the senior AP specialist
- Decision rights
- AP can hold any invoice missing a waiver. PMs approve percent complete. Controller approves the payment run and any payment over the contract value.
Process
- Outcome
- Subs paid the correct amount within 30 days, never without a waiver and current insurance
- Handoffs
- AP to PM for approval (the longest wait); AP to controller for the run; controller to treasury
- Known exceptions
- PM approval late (most months); waiver missing (about 1 in 7 invoices); overbilling against percent complete (often found only at closeout)
Data
- Data it needs
- Invoices by email; subcontracts and billings in the accounting system; waivers and insurance in a spreadsheet
- Data problems
- Invoices re-keyed from PDF; waiver log kept apart from the payment system; cost codes don’t always match the budget
A written verdict for every workflow.
First, is it worth changing? If not, keep it or retire it. If it is, two questions route it: is the process clear, and is the data ready?
Data ready Data not ready Process clear
Automate
Process clear, data ready. Ready to build now.
Process unclear
Fix
Process unclear, data ready. Redesign the process.
Rebuild
Neither is ready. Fix both. Takes the longest; often worth the most.
Keep
It works. Leave it alone.
Retire
Nobody uses the output. Stop doing it.
One number, measured from real work.
Pick the number that matches your biggest constraint. The same number follows you through every later step. Estimates from interviews almost always come in low, so measure real work.
| If your constraint is | Measure | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Capacity | Staff hours per month on the workflow | 60 hours a month across AP and project managers |
| Decision speed | Days from start to done (or days to close) | 18 days from invoice received to paid |
| Resilience | Workflows that stop if one person is out, and how long an error goes unnoticed | 3 of 5 workflows have no backup |
What you hold.
- 5 owners accountable for the workflows that matter most
- 5 workflow cards with outcomes, decisions, checks and known exceptions
- A verdict for each workflow: what to keep, what to retire and where to start
- One primary number, measured from real work
See it. Build it. Scale it.
The same number carries through every step: measure it now, move it on one workflow, then across the function.
Step 1 The 30 days
See it
You know where capacity, speed and resilience are being lost.
To move on: You can state the cost and where you’ll start.
Step 2
Build it
Owners, processes and data are ready, and one improved workflow is running.
To move on: The workflow runs from its card, not from memory, for one full cycle.
Step 3
Scale it
New workflows run in production, and your team can build the next one.
To move on: Your team ships a new workflow end to end on its own.
Before you book.
How much time does it take?
About two hours a week for four weeks from the finance leader, plus short conversations with the people closest to each workflow. Week 1 is a free workshop.
Do we need to clean up our data first?
No. Week 3 tells you which workflows have data problems worth fixing, and which ones are ready as they are.
Do we need a new ERP or new software?
No. The 30 days work with the systems you already use. Anything that works gets a Keep verdict and is left alone.
Does anything write to our accounting system?
No. Nothing we build writes back to your ERP. Your team keeps review and approval of every output.
Who owns the work afterwards?
You do. The owners, workflow cards, verdicts and starting number belong to your team, whether or not we work together on what comes next.
Find your top 5 workflows, with your team.
We go down the list of construction finance workflows together, ask three questions of each, and leave you with a shortlist and the reason each one made it.
- Capacity: does it take significant staff time?
- Decisions: does a leader wait on it?
- Resilience: would it stall if one person left?
No cost and no commitment to the full 30 days.