Construction Profit Platform
Construction Profit Platform
Team
Arezou Solouki
Sr. Product manager
Arezou Solouki
Sr. Product manager
AB
Arezou Solouki
Sr. Product manager
SO
Arezou Solouki
Sr. Product manager
KL
Arezou Solouki
Sr. Product manager
SW
My role
Product designer
Timeline
Aug 2024 - Feb 2025
Background
Construction Profit Platform is a B2B web application for US real estate developers. It helps project teams track progress, manage contractors, and control the profitability of construction projects.
Core users are:
Project Managers, responsible for timelines and budgets.
Site Supervisors, responsible for day‑to‑day work on site.
Back‑office coordinators, who support documentation, contracts, and reporting.
I joined the product team to design a set of new flows that would move more of the daily coordination work inside the platform and reduce reliance on email and spreadsheets.
Context & market
US real estate developers typically manage multiple residential and commercial projects in parallel. Their toolstack is fragmented:
Task tracking and responsibility mapping often live in spreadsheets.
Communication happens in email, messengers, and calls.
Project history is split across PDFs, contracts, and personal notes.
From problem to insights
(01)
Problem
❗
Out-of-date team structure
Project teams change frequently: subcontractors rotate, responsibilities shift, people move to other projects. The platform did not reflect these changes quickly, so:
tasks remained assigned to the wrong people,
notifications went to inactive team members,
no one trusted the “team” section as a source of truth.
❗
No standardization for recurring workflows
Many workflows repeat from project to project (pre-construction checks, weekly site inspections, safety routines, client handover). In reality, they lived in:
personal Excel checklists,
old project copies,
individual PMs’ memory.
This caused inconsistencies in execution quality between projects and made it hard to scale best practices.
❗
Project context was invisible in the platform
Decisions from calls, risks, client expectations, and site observations were rarely recorded inside the product. They existed in:
notebooks and loose documents,
email threads,
chat messages.
New team members had no way to “read the story” of a project; they had to ask colleagues or search across different tools.
(03)
Hypotesis
👥
Make team structure always match reality
♻
Standardize recurring workflows with Shadow templates
📊
Capture decisions through lightweight, contextual notes
(02)
Key product challenges
👥
Make the platform match the real team
♻️
Turn recurring workflows into reusable assets
📓
Capture and surface project knowledge over time
(04)
Research setup
✅
User interviews
User interviews with 6 project managers, 3 site supervisors, and 2 operations managers from mid-size US development companies, focused on how they currently manage teams, repeatable workflows, and project knowledge.
✅
Platform analytics review
Platform analytics review for existing projects, focused on usage of team settings, task creation patterns, and drop-off points.
✅
Artifact review of external tools
Artifact review of external tools: anonymized Excel checklists, internal guidelines, and email threads used for recurring processes.
(05)
Insights
1.
People organize work around workflows, not tools
PMs think in terms of “pre-construction”, “permits”, “site inspections”, “handover”, not “tasks” versus “notes”. Tools should follow these mental models.
2.
Standard checklists exist, but they are personal
Almost every PM or operations lead had their own version of checklists. There was a strong desire to “stop reinventing the wheel” and unify them, but no shared place to store and apply them.
3.
Speed beats structure at the moment of capture
Users were ready to write more notes and keep the platform updated, but only if adding information took seconds and they could do it from the context they were already in (project, task, workflow).
4.
“Official” structures lag behind reality
HR systems and org charts were always out of date for project realities. PMs needed a lightweight project-level view of the actual working team that they could control.
Solutions
(01)
Edit team members flow
👥
Single team view with quick edits
All project members are shown in one place with roles and responsibility areas, so PMs can see the real working team at a glance and keep it aligned with what actually happens on the project.
🔄
Lightweight updates for dynamic teams
Inline edits and a simple confirmation on removal make it easy to adjust team composition as people join, leave, or change responsibilities, which helps keep the platform in sync with reality instead of the static org chart.
(02)
Schedule / Shadow templates list flow
📄
Shared library of standard workflows
A list of templates with clear names and one-line descriptions turns personal checklists into a shared, discoverable library of workflows that can be reused across many projects.
➕
Clear entry point to move from spreadsheets into the platform
A prominent “Add New Template” action nudges operations and PMs to formalize new recurring workflows in the product instead of keeping them in external documents.
(03)
Template editor flow (create / edit template)
📝
Lightweight template editor that people will actually use
The editor focuses on essentials (name, description, basic classification), lowering the barrier for ops and senior PMs to codify their standard processes without getting stuck in overcomplicated configuration.
✅
Tasks as a simple, editable workflow inside the template
Tasks are managed as a straightforward list inside the template, so users can quickly review and refine the full workflow before applying it to real projects, turning “ideas of a process” into concrete, repeatable steps.
(04)
Create new task flow
📌
Focused form for clear, actionable tasks
The task form includes only key fields (title, assignee, due date, core attributes), helping teams create tasks that are understandable and executable from the first time, instead of vague items that require extra clarification.
📆
Dates aligned with the project schedule
A date picker tied to real project timelines reduces errors with deadlines and helps PMs keep Shadow workflows and ad-hoc tasks realistically scheduled.
(05)
Add notes and notes list flow
🗒️
Structured notes for important project context
The “Add Note” modal (type, title, content, tags, attachments) encourages users to capture decisions, risks, and client feedback in a structured way that can be searched and reused, not lost in random text.
📎
Project log that can be searched and revisited
The notes list with search and basic filters turns scattered notes into a readable project history, so new team members can quickly reconstruct what happened and why certain decisions were made, without digging through emails and chats.
(04)
Impact
72%
of active PMs updated teams regularly, increasing trust
41%
of new projects used standardized templates
27%
faster setup for new project workflows overall.
38%
more notes per active project, especially around milestones
24%
fewer tasks without assignee or due date
(05)
Key learnings
💡
Designing around real workflows drives adoption
When flows follow how PMs actually think and work (phases, checklists, responsibilities), new features get used instead of ignored.
💡
Standardization must feel flexible, not restrictive
Templates work best when they provide a recommended path but still allow PMs to adjust them for the specifics of each project.
💡
Speed in capturing data improves data quality
Users are more willing to update teams and add notes when it takes just a few seconds and happens in the context of their current task.
💡
Project-level ownership beats centralized org structures
Letting PMs own the project team setup makes the data more accurate than relying only on HR or CRM systems.
💡
Small UX decisions compound into operational impact
Inline edits, clear labels, and simple search together reduce friction enough for the system to stay up to date over time.
💡
Metrics need qualitative context to be meaningful
Numbers showed higher usage, but interviews explained that users felt less need for side tools and more trust in the platform.
Releted Projects
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@2024 Natalia K.
available for a full - time position
Made by Natalia K.