A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO

DESIGN
& BUILD
B U S I N E S S

BY AMIT BANSAL
CO-FOUNDER & CEO
TABLE OF
CONTENTS

01 Who can use this Guide? 03

02 Emerging opportunity in design-and-build 04

03 Fundamental problem in construction 06

04 Golden Journey of a project 09

a. Recce
b. Design
c. BOQ
d. Order
e. Work Progress
f. Snags
g. Financial Closure

05 Project Manager (PM) Task List 31

06 Note for the students 32

02
WHO CAN USE THIS GUIDE?
This is a practical guide for professionals and
students preparing for interviews in real estate
and construction companies. It offers insights
into the inner workings of a construction/
architecture company and gives you a good
understanding of the types of problems you
might be solving after joining or starting a
company in this domain.
Most of the content in this guide stems from
my personal experiences of establishing a
design and build company, 91Squarefeet. After
spending a significant time understanding the
challenges of the construction industry, we
encapsulated our learnings into a software
called RDash. While writing this guide, I have
found it beneficial to use RDash as an example,
as it creates a visual context.
This guide will help you learn about various
phases of a project along with the typical day-
to-day challenges. I endeavour to nudge you
into a problem-solving mindset around solving
these challenges by offering advice on how you
can tackle these in a resourceful manner.
Video

03
EMERGING OPPORTUNITY IN
DESIGN-AND-BUILD
Twenty years ago, architects and contractors
had distinct roles in India's construction
market. Architects focused on designing
spaces, while contractors handled on-site work.
Clients often hired project management
consultants to coordinate between the two.

Economic reforms at the start of the 21st

century sparked rapid growth in infrastructure
spending. This allowed the industry to evolve
quickly. Companies like Hafeez Contractor,
LnT & JLL started developing complementary
skills. Construction companies expanded their
design expertise, and design firms built
procurement and project management
capabilities. This shift led to the emergence of
the design and build era, where companies
offered a one-stop solution for construction
and fit-out projects.

Why did these companies pursue becoming design

and build firms so aggressively, even when their
original businesses were successful?

04
The key reason is the potential for higher profit
margins. When projects are divided among
architects, consultants, and contractors, profits
decrease for each party, and the client's
bargaining power increases, further reducing
supplier margins. By integrating services,
companies could retain more profits and have
greater control over projects.

💡For a typical construction project, a contractor's

margin is twice as high, and an architect's margin is
ten times higher when they offer both design and
build services compared to just doing construction
or design work alone.

However, managing both, design and

construction simultaneously increases the
complexity of business operations. This is
where technology becomes powerful in the
current construction context. Established
market players will take time to upgrade their
technology to adapt to this sector's dynamism,
providing an opportunity for new entrants to
adopt technology.

05
They can operate more efficiently than existing
companies, disrupting the sector. This is our
vision for RDash - empowering new-age design
and build companies to operate with increased
efficiency and agility.

FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM IN
CONSTRUCTION

Client

Architect

Architect
PROJECT
MANAGER

Engineering
Consultant
Client

Consultant
Materials
Furniture
Factory

Even in the simplest projects, over 20 stake-

holders collaborate, which is where mistakes
are frequently made. Consider a scenario where
you're a project manager for an office fit-out
project.

06
During the project, a contractor identifies a
discrepancy between the proposed plan and
the actual site condition. An AC duct is cutting
through a beam, prompting the contractor to
alert the MEP consultant. This consultant must
involve the architect, as the solution will affect
other aspects such as ceiling design and
available space height. The architect proposes
using cassette ACs instead. As a project
manager, you must coordinate this change with
the procurement team, MEP contractor, civil
vendor, AC vendor, and of course, the client.
Even small changes can have a butterfly effect,
creating a significant coordination workload for
project managers.

There is currently no standard method to

manage this, and each project manager and
organization handles it in their own way. The
lack of a proper technology system to correct
this coordination issue typically results in a 10%
increase in project costs and a 20% delay. This
is why organizations lose agility in project
management, resulting in idle site labor, wasted
materials, and piled-up overheads.

07
When we think or talk about technology in
construction, we often envision robots laying
bricks, 360-degree cameras creating virtual
walkthroughs, or site work quality analysis
using smart devices. India's construction sector
will eventually adopt these emerging
technologies, but first, we need to address
more fundamental issues.

Creating and adhering to certain project

management template that consolidates all
information - such as site survey data, design
files, project scope, procurement, site progress,
material tracking, reimbursements, audits, and
handovers - into one place is helpful as it will
create a single source of truth for everyone
involved. 95% of construction companies in
India do not have a particular system to clearly
understand what percentage of profit margins
they are finally making on their project. When
industry is in such a state, fixing workflows to
weed out day-to-day operating issues and
induce professionalism in the workforce is the
foundational work this industry need before we
become ready to consume advance tech.

08
GOLDEN JOURNEY OF A
PROJECT
Whether it is an office fit-out project or a
ground-up construction of a hotel; following 7
steps exhaustively completes the entire life
cycle of a project.

Understanding these seven steps will provide

the necessary knowledge to communicate
effectively with experienced individuals in the
construction sector. In the following sections,
I'll refer to RDash's screens to give a visual
context of a construction project's workings.
We will use an office fit-out project as an
example.

09
STEP 01
RECCE

'Recce' short for 'reconnaissance', is an industry

term which refers to a site survey. Before
designing, an architect requires measurements
of an area, capturing existing site conditions,
structural components, and markers for inlets
and outlets around AC, electrical, and plumbing
services. However, project execution teams
requires clarity on a broader range of subjects
than just space measurements.

10
They need to know the material movement
guidelines from the building's developer,
material storage and handling areas, also
understand the work shift timings, and the
structural layout of the floor etc. Once these
details are captured, this need to be organized
into a report. This report becomes the first
document for interacting with the client about
their requirements.

Typical Pain Points: Often, the person

conducting the recce doesn't have a complete
list of necessary details to capture. This can
result in multiple site visits and wasted time at
the start of the project.

Remedy: Create a site survey checklist and

reporting formats, assign specific personnel for
recce, site survey trainings to the person going
for recce etc.

11
STEP 02
DESIGN

Design development typically utilizes software

such as Autocad, Sketch-up, and Revit. The
design process consists of two phases:
Concept development and the creation of Good
For Construction (GFC) drawings. From a
project management perspective, challenges
often arise during coordination around GFC
drawings between the site team and the design
team. Drawings serve as the primary mode of
communication in projects.

12
 Design softwares

When coordination occurs through emails and

WhatsApp, it increases the risk of different
project participants referring to varying design
versions, possibly leading to contractors
working off outdated designs.
Despite the availability of advanced tools like
BIM, Plangrid, and RDash for managing drawing
versions and collaboration, the construction
industry in India still grapples with establishing
these basic necessities. Poor design
coordination is a significant cause of rework,
material waste, and idle labor at sites.
Typical Pain Points:
1. Mismanagement of design file versions,
leading to confusion and waste.
2. The design process extending beyond the
execution start date, which cuts into
planning time and increases project
coordination load.

13
Remedies:
1. Develop a site mobilization checklist to
ensure the availability of necessary GFC
files at the project's outset.
2. Implement a design management system
for:
a. Tracking design files, their versions, and
approvals
b. Coordinating with designers and clients
during the execution phase.

STEP 03
BOQ (BILL OF QUANTITIES)

A Bill of Quantities (BOQ) is a term used to

define the scope of a project. It typically

14
includes item names, descriptions, quantities,
rates, and costs for each item. BOQ line items
are usually grouped into sections such as Civil
(Flooring, Partition, Glass, etc.), MEP (AC,
HVAC, plumbing, etc.), loose furniture, white
goods, and more.

Quantity surveying teams, also known as QS

teams, create a BOQ by studying GFC drawings
to quantify every cost item. However, it is
impossible to create a perfect BOQ at the start
of a project due to potential human errors,
design changes proposed by clients during
execution, or unexpected site conditions.
Therefore, a responsible project manager's
primary duty is to continuously update the BOQ
and document changes with clients to prevent
revenue leakage at the project's conclusion.

Typical Pain Points:

1. Revenue leakages, which can amount to 2%
of the project value, occur when a PM fails
to document changes in scope with the
client in a timely manner.

15
 2. An incomplete description of a scope
element can lead to deviations in the
quality of work executed on site.
3. Improper formatting of the BOQ
increases the likelihood of human error.
4. Without proper item-wise margin analysis,
the Project Manager might pay more to the
contractor than what is charged to the
client.
5. Project delays can occur when there's a
lack of coordination between procurement
and project management teams, leading to
critical long lead items from the BOQ being
unidentified and not procured on time.

Remedies:
1. Maintain status against each BOQ line item
to track what has been approved by the
client and what is still pending.
2. Create a predefined catalogue of items,
known as an element library, to use when
creating a BOQ. This will allow for better
control over item descriptions.
3. Develop a standard template for creating
project BOQs that is to be followed across
the company.

16
 4. Maintain a procurement tracker against
BOQ line items with their procurement
status and cost.

STEP 04
ORDER

In a typical office project, the project scope is

usually divided among 3-4 major vendors (civil-
interior, MEP, loose furniture) and several
smaller vendors for specialty items like carpets
and metal fabrications etc.

17
The procurement team typically runs the RFP
(Request for Proposal) process with vendors
specific to each category, negotiates, and
releases orders. If the orders are not released
on time according to the project execution plan,
it can cause project delays. There may also be
long lead items, such as custom furniture and
workstations, which are made-to-order. The
project manager must consistently urge
procurement teams to place timely orders for
these items.
The scope of the order can change based on
design iterations and site conditions, requiring
a precise degree of reconciliation during vendor
invoice processing. The project manager must
validate changes in the originally proposed
quantities while ensuring that extra cost items
suggested by the vendor are also billed to the
client as well.

Typical Pain Points:

1. Without a maker-checker system for orders,
the project may experience cost overruns.
2. Lack of visibility between procurement and
project teams can lead to project delays.

18
 3. Reconciliation requires tremendous efforts
and prone to human error when checking
supplier invoices against order quantities
and passing those on to the client as a
claim for additional work.

Remedies:
1. Establish an approval hierarchy to accept
an invoice and release an order. Reviewing
results in increased accountability!
2. Keep an element code for each BOQ and
order line item to automate reconciliation to
a great extent. Creating a procurement rate
master similar to the BOQ library is also
beneficial.
3. Maintain a procurement tracker, especially
for long lead items, to help the project
manager and procurement teams stay
synchronized.

19
STEP 05
WORK PROGRESS

When we started 91Squarefeet, the first

problem we encountered as we grew to 10
projects running in parallel was that we didn't
know what was going on at our site. There is a
widely adopted practice in the industry called
DPR - Daily Progress Report, a report from the
site published to all project stakeholders.
Getting DPRs with visual proofs demystifies the
site operations for the management and
creates a culture of accountability in the site
team.

20
Key building blocks of this report are:
Site photographs and video
Installed work progress (on BOQ line items)
Manpower count - Better if divided as per
specialization
Blockers
Tomorrow’s plan
Projected end date
Project’s percentage completion

Typical Pain Points:

1. Site operations remain a black box for
management as project managers often do
not want to fill DPRs as they believe value
lies in getting the job done, not in filing
reports. The client would escalate about
lack of progress while the site team will
keep on reassuring that things are going
right. This disconnect between client and
site teams leads to significant wastage of
leadership bandwidth.
2. Invoicing of projects is also generally tied to
percentage completion. In the absence of
daily tracking of progress on BOQ level, this
often leads to delay in invoicing and creates
cash flow risk in the project.

21
 3. Site teams often face challenges which are
out of their control and need support from
management, client, or external stake-
holders like landlords and more often than
not, they are blamed for failing to raise
these concerns timely.
4. In the absence of quality reporting, critical
issues come to light when it is too late.

Remedies:
1. Create a DPR template along with a way to
track when DPR is not submitted. Draw
patterns like:
a. Daily reported percentage against dates
- If your progress curve is following an S
pattern, it means the project is largely
going fine. If this curve has flat lines
and steep jumps, it means either
planning or accountability in the PM is
broken. In any case, a bad pattern in
project progress curve is an early
indicator of poor project delivery.
b. Projected End Date against dates - If
there are no deviations in the projected
end date, this graph will remain flat.

22
Eventually, there are some steps in this
line graph but the number of steps and
frequency of these steps matter. If there
are more than 3 steps in the projected
end date, it means multiple false
commitments of delivery date have
been made and customer experience
has gone for a toss.

Daily reported percentage

against dates

ProjectedEnd Date
against dates

23
2. Build systems to send invoice raising alerts
when site progress hits payment milestones
Do not leave it only on project managers.
Management control on this is a must-have
for any D&B company.
a. Conduct 50% and 85% milestone
completion reviews concerning Drawing,
BOQ, Order, and Progress Update. Key
items to review are: Pending drawings,
unapproved scope items, long lead item
procurement, sampling list and approval
status, plan for remaining work,
Manpower tracking through DPRs.

24
STEP 06
SNAGS/AUDITS

The standard protocol for project handover

consists of two stages:
1. Date of Practical Handover - This is when
all critical work is completed, though there
may be finishing gaps and touch-up
requirements in a few places. At this stage,
the customer should be invited for a space
inspection. Since labor is still on-site, it's
important to gather final feedback about
what's non-negotiable for customers before
they take over the project.

25
 This is typically when the final invoices to
the client are raised.

2. Date of Final Handover - This is when the

site is snag-free and the customer has
occupied the premises. The Defect Liability
Period (DLP) starts at this point. The
standard DLP is one year, during which the
Design and Build (D&B) firm needs to correct
minor snags resulting from space usage.
Final invoices are generally settled after date
of final handover.

Because customer involvement is at it’s peak

from the practical handover to the final
handover, how snags are recorded, addressed,
and reported can affect reputation and repeat
business from that customer. It is advisable to
maintain snag lists with statuses and maintain
constant coordination with the client during this
period to ensure confidence.

26
STEP 07
FINANCE

You may be surprised to learn that 95% of

contractors do not know what percentage of
gross margins they are truly making on their
projects. This is a problem we also grappled
with within the first 12 months of starting
91Squarefeet. Let's take a moment to imagine
what's going on in a project. You negotiated a
rate assuming certain costs and noted down an
expected margin on a project.

27
During the execution of the project, there are
changes in the scope itself, material prices
change a bit, travel and lodging expenses of
site teams and leadership remain unaccounted
for in project costs, the site PM purchases
some materials or settles labor in cash to deal
with last-minute exigencies, some material gets
wasted, labor remains idle for a few days,
human errors lead to rework, you are incurring
the cost of working capital, and so on.

Reconciling project expenditures and revenue is

a significant task in itself where you need to
lock the architect, PM, supervisor, procurement
and the client account manager, in one room
for a couple of days post project completion in
order to have precise reconciliation of project
P&L. Obviously, this never happens, and
reconciliation drags on for months. This
creates an inherent risk in the entire system,
especially if you are planning on scaling at a
rapid pace.

28
Typical Pain Points:
1. Cash flow control on projects is not put in
place by most companies. You can't always
tie your payments as back-to-back payouts
to vendors when you receive money from
the client. In order to gain efficiency, you
need to break the project into multiple
suppliers, many of whom would have
executed their complete scope before you
hit the first payment milestone with your
customer.
2. In the absence of a proper system around
handling reimbursements and project
expense limits, you lose agility around
solving small blockers and exigencies. On
one side, it creates unpredictability for the
site team around the lengths they could go
to solve the blockers, on the other hand,
poor handling of these issues breaks client
relationships.
3. Executive travel to the site is generally not
tied to the project and accounted for as an
admin expense. This creates a distorted
picture around the margins you are actually
making.

29
 4. Poor reconciliation creates dark spots in
the system, leaving ground for cost overr-
ns and breeds malpractices and corruption.
Also, settling vendors in an uncontrolled
manner creates a cash flow risk on the
business as well.

Remedies:
1. Assign every project a code, say JOB ID.
Create a project wallet where you decide at
the start of the project how much cash flow
you are going to invest in the project as per
the client's and suppliers' payment terms. If
that cash flow wallet is breached, stop
making further payments, and escalate to
the client.
2. Create a finance controller bandwidth and
approval mechanism around project
reimbursements. Do it in weekly cycles if
possible.
3. Tag all site-specific expenses to the JOB ID.
Don't leave room for an expense getting
approved without a JOB ID.
4. Integrate ERP with the project management
software.

30
PROJECT MANAGER TASK
MASTER
Task Description Responsible Status Due Date Note
Conduct site survey Use a
Site MM/DD/
Site Survey and collect all Pending predefined
Engineer YYYY
necessary details checklist
Material Capture guidelines
Site MM/DD/ Coordinate
Movement from building's Pending
Engineer YYYY with developer
Guidelines developer
Finalize Complete concept Use design
MM/DD/
Concept design & get Architect Pending management
YYYY
Design client approval software
Develop Good For Ensure all
GFC MM/DD/
Construction (GFC) Architect Pending versions are
Drawings YYYY
drawings tracked
Develop initial BOQ Use element
Create MM/DD/
based on GFC QS Team Pending library for
Initial BOQ YYYY
drawings consistency
Continuously
Project MM/DD/ Regular client
Update BOQ update BOQ with Ongoing
Manager YYYY communication
scope changes
Conduct RFP MM/DD/
Vendor Procure- Ensure timely
process and select Pending
Selection ment Team YYYY order release
vendors
Place orders MM/DD/
Place according to Procure- Track long
Pending
Orders ment Team YYYY lead items
project plan
Daily Include blockers,
Submit DPR with MM/DD/
Progress Site Team Daily manpower count,
visual proofs YYYY
Report next steps
Monitor work pro- MM/DD/
Track Project Use progress
gress and update Ongoing
Progress Manager YYYY tracking tools
project status
Complete critical
Practical MM/DD/ Gather final
work & invite clie- Site Team Pending
Handover YYYY client feedback
nt for inspection
Ensure site is Start Defect
Final MM/DD/
snag-free and rea- Site Team Pending Liability Period
Handover YYYY
dy for occupation (DLP)
Create Allocate budget
Finance MM/DD/ Assign JOB
Project and track project Pending
Team YYYY ID
Wallet expenses
Expense Reconcile project PMs & MM/DD/ Regular review
Reconcilia- expenses and Finance Ongoing
YYYY meetings
tion revenue team

31
NOTE FOR THE STUDENTS

As you step forward into the vast world of

construction, you'll encounter professionals
who have become accustomed to the industry's
challenges. They have adapted and found ways
to work around these problems. It's essential to
learn from their experiences but also to bring
your fresh perspective and open-mindedness to
the table. This combination can help you unlock
the potential of what is referred to as the
'golden journey' - seven key stages that
encompass the life of a construction project:
Recce, Design, BOQ, Order, Work Progress,
Snags/ Audits, and Finance.
Each of these steps is interconnected, and
success in one area often depends on success
in the others. Understanding these steps, the
associated pain points and remedies is crucial
to successfully steering your professional
career in Construction and Design-Build
companies. This fundamental understanding of
the construction process can set you apart as a
Next Gen Project Professional.

32
 ABOUT THE
AUTHOR

Amit Bansal is a first-generation

serial entrepreneur, currently the
co-founder and CEO of
91Squarefeet and RDash. He is
AMIT BANSAL a civil engineering graduate
CO-FOUNDER & CEO

from NIT Kurukshetra, worked

as a structural designer, and
studied supply chain manage-
ment at IIM Mumbai. He has
earlier co-founded Quifers - A
route planning software in
logistics and Yoda App - A bite
size learning platform.
He is a strong believer in the
India story. Amit believes, in the
next 5 decades, India is going to
shine given a huge demographic
dividend and massive growth
tailwinds, especially for the real
estate and Infra sector.

33