01 · The situation
A change lands mid-build. The decision it forces takes nine days.
High-rise fit-out. Mid-build, the structural engineer issues a revised drawing, and your crew is already working right up against the zone it changes. The change is logged as a formal variation, V-118, and it lands on your desk as a decision you now owe an answer on.
BIM (the Building Information Model) is live. The programme (the project schedule) is updated. The cost report is current. And the variation eating your margin sits undecided for nine days, because three people have worked out three different answers and none of them is the number you can decide on.
02 · Decision points
Four ways to take V-118 forward — each costs something different.
On paper, a clean four-way choice. In practice you can't make it, because nobody can yet say what each path would cost.
03 · As-is
How it gets made today: nine days, three people, no agreed number.
Revised structural drawing issued against a partly-built package. The change is real. The decision is now live, but nobody owns the number yet.
The QS (quantity surveyor) works out the extra cost in a spreadsheet. The planner works out how many days of delay it adds to the schedule. The contracts lead checks whether the contract even lets you claim for it. Three people, three separate answers, no single agreed number.
The crew keeps building toward the affected zone, so the cheap fix gets more expensive by the day, while the model lags the as-built and the notice window quietly runs down.
A call is finally made under pressure, on half-reconciled numbers, usually the safe, expensive one. Sometimes the window to claim has already closed.
04 · Assisted
The machine prepares the decision overnight. You make it before lunch.
Same change, V-118. The nine days collapse, because the three separate manual jobs become one automatic one.
Catches the change as it lands. The same revised drawing is issued. The system is already reading the instruction log, the model, the schedule and the cost position, so it catches V-118 the moment it's issued, instead of waiting for someone to notice and chase it.
Gives the decision an owner and a clock. It logs V-118 as a live decision and starts the notice deadline running, so the call has an owner and a countdown from minute one, instead of drifting unowned for days.
Does the three jobs as one. Instead of the QS, planner and contracts lead each working a separate file, it pulls all three together by morning — cost to carry, days of delay, and whether you can claim — then shows what each of the four options would cost in money and in time, on one agreed set of numbers.
One screen, four costed options. You open one view, see all four options costed side by side, and pick — that morning, not on day nine. The system did the reconciliation. The judgement is still yours.
05 · The options, costed
All four on one basis: cost, time, and what has to hold true.
Illustrative figures · scenario data, not a live system or a real project
06 · The playbook
What the options were weighed against.
This is judgment your best people already carry. Written into the decision, it works on every variation — not just the ones they happen to see.
07 · The call
Claim — four days to spare.
Claim: ₹3.1 Cr and 9 days recovered — net cost falls to + ₹1.1 Cr, not + ₹4.2 Cr.
Entitlement holds — notice goes in before the window closes in 4 days.
Notice, EOT submission, evidence pack and cost submission drafted overnight.
Queued for the QS and contracts lead to sign — a person still reviews and issues.
Claim, window open
08 · After the call
Pick a direction and the whole process is already staged.
Variation notice
Drafted against the contract clause, dated, referencing the revised drawing.
EOT submission
Delay analysis run from the schedule, nine days, with the affected activities attached.
Evidence pack
Drawing revisions, the RFI thread, daywork sheets and site photos, pulled and indexed.
Cost submission
Priced from the live cost position, broken down line by line, ready to attach.
Routing & deadline
Queued for the QS and contracts lead to sign. Notice window closes in four days, flagged.
What happened next
The decision leaves the room.
Site lead drops the EOT to 7 days — two clawed back on the slab pour; affected activities re-linked, cost submission unchanged, notice draft updated.
Contracts lead adds the soil report to the evidence pack, then issues the claim to the client, copied to the QS.
QS confirms the cost submission, priced from the live cost position, line by line.
V-118 closed as a claim and saved to the knowledge base — what was decided, and why. Learned: structural revision mid-build; entitlement clear, window open, claimed cost plus 7 days.
Illustrative follow-through · scenario data
Structural revision mid-build; entitlement clear, window open, claimed cost plus 7 days.
Minor finishes change under the variation threshold, carried, no programme impact.
Client-driven layout change; float available, resequenced without a claim.
Every decision you close teaches the system. The next variation starts from what your firm already knows, not from scratch.
09 · As-is vs assisted
Same decision, V-118. Two very different projects.
| As-is manual · today | Assisted with Decisome | |
|---|---|---|
| Time to decide | ~9 days, made under pressure | By the next morning |
| Basis for the call | Three rival spreadsheets, no agreed number | One agreed set of numbers |
| Options explored | One path worked out by hand, no time to weigh the rest | All four, costed on the same basis |
| Cost outcome | Usually the safe, expensive option | The cheapest path that still works, chosen with the trade-off visible |
| Value recovered | Claim window often missed before anyone checks | Window tracked from day one, so where entitlement holds, notice goes in on time |
| Evidence | Scrambled together at the end, if at all | Pack pre-assembled, indexed and ready |
| After you decide | Paperwork assembled by hand, later | Whole process staged, ready to issue |
| Company knowledge | Lives in heads, leaves with the people | Captured in your knowledge base |
| Who decides | You, late, on partial facts | You, on time, fully informed |
V-118 is an illustrative example built from how variations are commonly handled on fit-out projects, not a client result. The nine days, the three workstreams and the figures on this page describe the shape of the problem.
Is this your decision — or close to it?