Why We Still Suck at Managing the Two Most Important Things: Time & Money
There are only two scarcities in life: time and money. And if you mess up one, you’re probably going to lose the other.
You don’t have to look far, especially if you’re a parent. The color-coded calendar and weekly grocery budget look great on paper, but then Monday hits. A last-minute project, a forgotten lunchbox and an impromptu practice suddenly have you scrambling to coordinate rides and finances.
The jobsite isn’t all that different. Many of us have built careers on fighting fires that never should have started. We’ve stood in the war rooms tackling dashboards that are redder than a warning light. We’ve watched as a “final” GMP turned into a merely a wishful starting point. And we’ve doubled down on the shifts to hit the guaranteed opening day ceremonies.
At this point, it’s become an expectation. An estimated 98% of megaprojects go over budget by more than 30% and roughly 77% finish at least 40% late. And if you think those are staggering, it gets even worse. Only 8.5% of construction projects actually come in on time and on budget.
Read that again. We’re talking less than one in ten.
This isn’t just a rough patch; it’s a full-blown industry crisis. And it’s not getting better.
Where We Keep Shooting Ourselves in the Foot
If you’ve worked in construction for longer than 10 minutes, you’ve seen the symptoms. Endless RFIs, constant finger-pointing and change orders that read like short novels start to eat away at your soul. But as they often say, the symptoms aren’t the causes.
To fix the problem, we have to go deeper.
Fragmented Communication & Poor Data Management
We talk a lot about “teamwork” in construction. But let’s be honest, most project teams operate in silos. Owners, architects, engineers, GCs and subcontractors are all rowing in different directions hoping the boat ends up on the jobsite.
Nearly two days per week per person are wasted just searching for information or resolving avoidable issues. And a brutal 48% of rework comes from bad data and miscommunication. That’s not inefficiency; that’s hemorrhaging cash and daylight.
Outdated Processes and Slow Tech Adoption
We’re building hospitals with robotics but managing them with spreadsheets and clipboards. While I hate hearing that “construction is slow to adopt technology,” we still aren’t truly investing in it. Less than 1% of revenue is directed to IT.
While other industries have digitized and automated, we’re still relying on manual schedule updates and email chains. Reactive instead of proactive. Paper-based instead of predictive. And we wonder why nothing improves.
Inadequate Preconstruction
“Fast-track it.” “We’ll figure it out in the field.” “Just get started, we’ll iron out the details later.”
Sound familiar?
Poor planning upfront is one of our deepest wounds. Projects kick off with incomplete scopes, unrealistic budgets and timelines born of wishful thinking. Then we are surprised when change orders and claims start rolling in.
Cultural Resistance and Siloed Teams
Change is hard. But in construction, we seem allergic to it.
We’ve got folks who’ve been building for 40 years. To many of them, if it worked in 1998, it must still be good today (doesn’t matter that the jobsite is three times more complex). This resistance, combined with siloed roles and adversarial mindsets, kills any chance of true collaboration.
Contractual and Incentive Misalignment
Ok, real talk for a minute. Most of our contracts are set up like chess matches. The lowest bid wins, risk is offloaded and everyone starts the job already on edge. The incentives are backwards. GCs win by being aggressive on numbers and making it up in change orders. Subcontractors finance the project while they wait for net-90s to catch up. Owners squeeze until the budget bleeds.
How do you build trust when the system rewards mistrust?
At the end of the day, these aren’t isolated mistakes. They’re systemic. We’ve normalized dysfunction.
And until we admit that we can’t fix it.
There’s Still Hope (I Swear)
Good news, we’re not doomed. In fact, the last 10–20 years have seen smart people doing real work to right the ship. And while no single silver bullet exists, a multifaceted set of improvements is starting to take root.
Thorough Planning and Scope Management
It all starts at the beginning. More owners and project teams are embracing robust front-end planning: locking scope, doing design coordination early and using realistic budgets and schedules based on data (not dreams).
We’re learning to treat preconstruction as its own phase of work, not a formality to rush through. This is how you kill scope creep before it starts.
Collaborative Incentives & Integrated Project Delivery (IPD)
If you want better outcomes, align everyone’s goals. Integrated team models with co-location, shared KPIs and early trade partner involvement are changing the game.
Or taking it a step further, IPD brings owners, designers and builders under a single contract with shared risk and reward. It’s not kumbaya, it’s just smart business. When everyone’s profit depends on finishing early and under budget, people stop hoarding information and start solving problems.
Digital Project Controls & Real-Time Data
Today’s technology can give us something we’ve never had before in construction: real-time decisions.
Cloud-based platforms, mobile apps, BIM, 4D scheduling and AI-driven forecasting are turning jobsite chaos into actionable insights. And all that data is showing us (in real-time) where we’re ahead, where we’re falling behind and most importantly, what to do next.
No more waiting for the monthly update to find out the project is off the rails. We can know today. And act today.
Continuous Improvement, Training & AI-Assisted Decision Making
The best teams don’t just execute; they learn. Formal “lessons learned” reviews, performance metrics and feedback loops are helping firms get better project by project.
We’re also seeing a shift in workforce development. Companies are training their project controls staff, bringing in schedulers, cost engineers and data analysts who can actually interpret the signals.
And of course, AI is coming. Not to replace those people, but to assist them with things like spotting trends, flagging risks and helping us make smarter, faster decisions.
So yeah, there is a lot of hope. We’re finally responding to construction’s chronic time and cost challenges with the kind of layered, smart, forward-thinking approaches they demand.
Re-Focusing on Scarce Resources
Let’s come back to where we started, the scarcity of time and money.
If you can’t manage that, you can’t manage a project. Period.
So, construction seems to be at a crossroads. We can keep living in the red (red ink, red schedules, red flags), or we can finally start operating like the high-stakes, high-impact industry that we are.
But honestly, it’s not optional anymore.
Clients are watching. The public is watching. Our own teams are tired of fighting losing battles. If we don’t get better at managing time and money, we don’t just risk our budgets; we risk our people and our reputation.
Build Like You Mean It
If you’re like me, you got into this business because you love building things. Tangible things. Impactful things. Things that last.
So, let’s build better. Not just in concrete and steel, but in how we manage, collaborate and lead. Let’s be the generation that stops shrugging at delays and overruns. Let’s be the professionals who are fed up and say,
“Enough. We can do better.”
Because time and money aren’t just project metrics, they’re life metrics.
And they’re too scarce to waste.
Construction is cool, tell your friends!