Work nobody commissioned
Something gets done along the way because it makes sense. It was not commissioned, it does not get billed, and it was worked all the same.
Practice / Your industry
Planning and engineering offices
Hours that were never planned and never recorded often decide whether a project carries its fee.
The working day
The terms
come from you.
Architecture practices, chartered engineers, engineering offices, surveying, building physics, structural design. Offices that work in stages, where the return depends on whether the time spent matches the fee.
JobProject
CustomerClient
LineWork stage
HourChargeable hour
DeadlineSubmission date
An example mapping. Your business defines its own terminology.
Where effort accumulates
A useful start
has a reason.
These situations help you recognise the work. We use your actual processes to find which apply to your business.
Stages that overlap
On paper the stages follow one another. In reality stage four is running while stage three is still taking changes.
Hours across several projects
One day splits across four projects. That gets written down at the weekend, if at all.
Deadlines with consequences
Submission dates, tender dates, authority processes. Miss one and you do not lose time, you lose the project.
A possible overview
One project is running out of its fee. Everything else is on plan.
1project over its hours budgetfor two weeks now
9 daysuntil the next submission datepaperwork 80 % done
5pieces of work not commissioneddraft variations are ready
An illustration with fictional figures. Sources and responsibilities belong in the individual implementation.
06 · A project to play through
Where does project work tip into unpaid work?
The drawing version, the work stage, the hours budget and the submission date all hang together. This scenario shows how an office makes the limit visible early.
From the signal to the decision
- What the agent does
- Pick a starting position on the left.
- The fixed rule
- The rule that applies appears once you choose.
- The visible result
- The visible result appears once you choose.
No starting position chosen yet.
The order of work
Which work
helps first.
Business guidance for a first scope, rather than a blanket instruction to rebuild an entire industry.
What can wait
Materials and orders
What is ordered, what is here, what is missing.
Tasks and handovers
What otherwise sits in one head.
Include the failure cases
Uncommissioned work is the sore point
It only shows at the end of the project, when it can no longer be recovered. It becomes visible only if hours are recorded at the moment of the work. Everything else is reconstruction.
Fee rules change
How a fee is worked out is in motion and differs by client. The calculation rules belong where they can be changed without touching the software.
Your first stage
Start where
the work improves.
For Planning and engineering offices, we choose a bounded first outcome with your team. Existing specialist systems can stay where they fulfil necessary requirements. We compare time relief, payments that can end and the cost of the new way of working.
The workshop gives you priorities and a roadmap. You can continue internally or with support from Markus Kirchmair. The choice of model and agent follows the task, with data and rules retained outside an individual chat.
Explore the workshop →Ready for the next change
Keep the work simple.
The first view should show the next relevant decision. Reasoning and sources remain accessible. We leave out unnecessary features and make actual progress visible.
When a rule changes, agents can help investigate the impact, prepare the adjustment and update tests and documentation. A qualified person assesses the result and its adoption.
Try a change →Your first step
Say yes
to less.
Less unnecessary software. More room for your work. Let’s find the useful first step.