Progressing Projects with Confidence: Connecting the Programme with Site Reality

Construction programmes provide the structure for successful delivery, but their value depends on the accuracy and timeliness of the information behind them. When progress information is slow, fragmented or disconnected from site activity, project teams can find themselves responding to problems only after delays and additional costs have materialised.

We invited Brendan Johnston, Planning Director, McLaren Construction Group, Dave Shaw, Water Sector Director, Montel Civil Engineering and Ben Fitzgerald, former Associate Director, AECOM, to discuss how organisations can close the gap.

Chaired by Peter Jaworski, Head of Sales for Eleco UK, and John Ryan, co-founder and director of SymTerra, the discussion focused on connecting programme data with real-time site updates to give project teams a more reliable picture of progress.

Unreliable Progress Information Creates Business Uncertainty

Starting with the basics, the panel covered the practical why behind keeping programmes progress regularly and accurately updated. As a longstanding Asta Powerproject and Asta Siteprogress customer, Brendan Johnston explained that unreliable progress information can create uncertainty across the business and contribute to unexpected problems towards the end of a project.

Reflecting on the introduction of a weekly progress process, he said it gave the business “confidence that we know where we’re going on every project at any given week”. He also highlighted the commercial importance of reliable records, particularly where projects enter claims or adjudication: “You have to have accurate records of what happened on the pitch.”

The Challenge with Fragmented Communication

From his experience working on wastewater works reworks, Dave Shaw explained that progress can sometimes be based on “viewpoint rather than reality”. The resulting costs can appear through time spent chasing information, rework, standing time and disruption between different contractors or work packages. Even a small delay early in a programme can have a significant impact on commissioning and the ability to meet a fixed regulatory date.

His central message was the need for “one version of the truth”, with teams understanding their interdependencies and working from shared, visible information.

The challenge around communication comes up often when discussing how to improve project management, in our previous webinar Build schedules you can deliver we focused more on the change management side.

The Need for Evidence

From a programme controls perspective, Ben Fitzgerald described the difficulty of receiving reports that do not match what has been observed on-site. As he put it: “Reports are not the evidence.”

Trusted information enables leaders to move beyond debating whether the data is correct and focus instead on bottlenecks, resource constraints, and corrective action. “That then moves you into a position of having a discussion around how we fix this thing,” he explained.

Asta Siteprogress and SymTerra can help by capturing progress and evidence from site and connecting that information with the programme in Asta Powerproject.

The discussion also highlighted the importance of filtering information – which is something we see at Eleco certainly happening with our customers setting up various dashboards for reporting. Not every operational issue needs senior attention. The objective is to escalate the matters that could affect delivery while allowing site teams to manage routine activity effectively.

“It’s really important for that upward reporting to actually understand the truth of what’s happened out there,” commented Ben Fitzgerald, former Programme Controls Lead on the Heathrow Terminal 2 baggage programme. “We’ve stopped arguing about what we think is happening on-site, and we started talking about the facts.

Technology is Only Part of the Picture

Improving progress reporting is as much a cultural challenge as a technical one. Site teams need simple ways to provide updates, while managers must support open communication rather than attempting to control or soften the message. 

When people see that reporting can be completed through a quick photograph or update, it becomes less of an administrative burden. However, successful adoption still depends on trust, shared responsibility and a clear understanding of how the information will be used.  

The integration of Asta’s planning environment with SymTerra’s site updates is intended to connect activities, progress and evidence, helping planners identify risks and opportunities earlier rather than spending their time chasing updates. 

Read previous blogs:

• Panel Discussion: How Connected Data Helps Identify Warning Signs in Construction Project
• The Missing Link Between Planning and Productivity
• Caught Between Excel and Primavera P6? Practical Planning Lessons from Our Latest Webinar
• From Spreadsheets to Smarter Planning: Why Growing Contractors Are Making the Switch