Construction Schedules: A New Feature in the 'Progress' SaaS Application
Progress - Internal Construction Planning and Management Application
ROLE
Product Design Intern
DURATION
3 Months
PLATFORM
Web Application
INDUSTRY
Construction Tech
ASBL
ASBL (Ashoka Builders India Pvt. Ltd.) is a Hyderabad-based real estate developer that manages large residential projects using internal tools for planning, scheduling, and Management. The product I worked on was part of this internal ecosystem, used daily by cross-functional teams on active construction projects.
CONTEXT
Understanding the Construction Landscape
PLATFORM OVERVIEW
A comprehensive digital solution designed for project managers, site engineers, and quality assurance teams managing complex residential construction projects.
PROJECT SCOPE
Multi-year residential developments requiring precise coordination across numerous stakeholders, phases, and dependencies.
THE CRITICAL CHALLENGE
Construction delays are only identified after they’ve already occurred, leaving teams scrambling to recover lost time and resources.
BUSINESS IMPACT
Late project handovers to customers
Damaged business credibility
Financial penalties and cost overruns
PROBLEM STATEMENT
" Construction teams lack early visibility into project progress, forcing them into a reactive cycle of damage control rather than proactive management."
No Early Visibility
On-site progress remains invisible until formal reporting cycles, creating dangerous blind spots in project timelines.
Manual Updates
Teams rely on Broken communication through Excel spreadsheets, WhatsApp messages, and phone calls, creating information silos.
Missed Dependencies
Critical task relationships and dependencies fall through the cracks, causing cascading delays across project phases.
"By the time we know there's a delay, it's too late to act. We're always putting out fires instead of preventing them."
— Project Manager Insight
TARGET USERS
Who We're Designing For
Three distinct user groups with interconnected workflows and shared objectives for project success.
01
Project Managers
Oversee entire project lifecycle, coordinate resources, and ensure on-time delivery. Need high-level visibility and early risk indicators.
02
Site Engineers
Manage day-to-day construction activities and technical execution. Need efficient ways to report progress and flag issues.
03
Quality Teams
Ensure construction meets standards and specifications. Need real-time access to task completion and inspection schedules.
PRIMARY USER GOAL
Spot issues early, so teams can fix them before they turn into delays
CORE USER NEED
Give everyone a clear, live view of project progress, so updates don't get lost.
RESEARCH FOCUS AREA
Our investigation centered on two critical questions that would shape the solution:
How do delays occur?
Understanding the root causes and contributing factors that lead to project delays and missed deadlines.
When do teams discover them?
Identifying the timing gap between when delays actually begin and when they're recognised by management.
KEY FINDINGS & PAIN POINTS
Our research uncovered systemic issues preventing proactive project management and creating a culture of reactive problem-solving.
Discovery Too Late
Delays are identified after deadlines have passed, eliminating any opportunity for preventive action or early intervention.
Manual Reporting Lag
Information moves slowly through manual channels, creating a dangerous gap between on-site reality and management awareness.
Fragmented Data
Project information scattered across Excel, WhatsApp, emails, and phone calls no single source of truth for project status.
Cascading Issues
Small bottlenecks accumulate unnoticed, eventually creating major delays that impact multiple project phases and timelines.
BEFORE
Existing User Flow
Teams only notice delays after they've already happened, leaving little time to fix them.
STEP 01
Manual Progress Updates
Site engineer records progress in spreadsheets or sends updates via WhatsApp at end of day or week.
STEP 02
Weekly Review Cycle
Project manager reviews accumulated updates during scheduled weekly meetings—creating up to 7-day information lag.
STEP 03
Post-Deadline Discovery
Delays discovered only after deadlines have been missed—damage already done to project timeline.
STEP 04
Reactive Escalation
PM escalates to leadership and assigns corrective actions, scrambling to minimize impact and recover lost time.
THE CORE PROBLEM
Without early visibility, teams end up fixing delays instead of preventing them.
SOLUTION
Proposed Solution
A real-time platform that helps construction teams spot issues early and keep projects on track.
Real-Time Dashboard
Live project progress visualization showing task status, completion rates, and team activity across all construction phases.
Early Warning System
Intelligent alerts flag at-risk tasks based on dependencies, timelines, and historical patterns catching issues before they become delays.
Centralized Platform
Single source of truth for all task updates, eliminating scattered communication across multiple tools and channels.
Actionable Insights
Data-driven recommendations enable PMs to intervene early with targeted corrective actions before delays impact timelines.
AFTER
New User Flow
The redesigned workflow gives teams a clear view of project progress, making it easier to catch delays early.
STEP 01
Instant Task Updates
Site engineer updates task status directly in the platform from mobile device information flows immediately to all stakeholders.
STEP 02
Live Visualization
Dashboard instantly reflects changes, visualizing project status, dependencies, and risk indicators in real-time for the entire team.
STEP 03
Automated Risk Detection
System continuously analyzes task progress against timelines and dependencies, automatically flagging potential delays before they occur.
UI Screens
Designed Plan Cards, Scheduling Gantt, and Real-time Gantt views to help teams plan timelines and track work. Also designed the Real-time Gantt 15-day PR & WD graph to monitor live project progress.
Plan Cards
01 / 03
Introduced Plan Cards so teams can create up to three different schedules, compare them, and keep one active plan at a time without disrupting ongoing work.
In designing the Plan Cards, the goal was to provide clarity and control. Each card prominently displays its status, allowing PMs to switch between plans or compare them at a glance. This structure empowers users to confidently explore different what-if scenarios before committing to a final project timeline.
Scheduling Gantt
02 / 03
The Scheduling Gantt was designed for the planning phase, where PMs need flexibility to build, compare, and refine timelines. With multi-level views (Entity → LT → WP), it gave them full control to assign tasks, define dependencies, and test different scenarios before committing.
By keeping the structure simple and navigable, the Scheduling Gantt provided clarity across levels, making dependencies and milestones easy to track. This helped PMs explore what-if plans confidently, without overwhelming detail.
Real Time Gantt
03 / 03
Created a real-time tracking view that turned static plans into living timelines, surfacing progress updates and schedule shifts as they happened.
With instant visibility into delays, workloads, and bottlenecks, the Real-time Gantt empowered PMs to act decisively, transforming the view into a decision-making dashboard that kept projects moving forward.
Added a 15-day PR/WD graph within the Real-time Gantt, designed to give a quick, visual snapshot of performance over recent cycles.
By translating activity into clear trends, the graph helped teams spot inefficiencies early, adjust workloads, and make faster decisions without digging through detailed timelines.
IMPACT
Expected Outcomes
70%
Faster Issue Detection
Reduction in time to identify project delays
50%
Fewer Late Handovers
Decrease in delayed project completions
100%
Unified Platform
Single source of truth for all teams
FUTURE OPPORTUNITIES
Predictive analytics using historical project data
Resource optimization recommendations
Integration with existing construction tools
This case study shows how designing the planning workflow helped construction teams identify issues early, track progress in real time, and keep projects on schedule.