Work our team has delivered · PROPERTY DEVELOPMENT
One live screen replaced 14 weekly reports for a property developer.
A property developer allocated capital from a weekly pack of 14 reports, built by hand across five departments. By the time leaders read it, the numbers were five to eight days old. Our team agreed one definition per metric and built one live screen, so capital decisions happen the day numbers change.
↳ Some of this work was delivered by Reenva's founder and team before Reenva was formed. Client name withheld; some commercial figures shown as bands.
/01 · What changed
1 screen now carries what 14 weekly reports used to, and capital decisions happen the day the numbers change.
Sales velocity, settlements, project cashflow, capital deployed and return per asset sit on one live screen. Each number is defined once and agreed by everyone who reads it.
1 screen
Carries what 14 separate weekly reports used to
Close to 2 days
Of weekly report-building no longer needed
Same day
Capital decisions made on live data, not last week’s pack
12wk
From kickoff to live
/02 · The problem the team was asked to fix
Every week, five departments produced their own numbers: sales, settlements, finance, construction and capital. Then someone spent close to two days stitching 14 reports into one executive pack. Leaders used that pack to decide where the next dollar of capital should go.
By the time leaders read the pack, every figure was five to eight days old. That is fine for an operating report. For moving capital across several live projects, it meant the biggest decisions used last week's picture.
Why a new dashboard on the old reports wouldn't fix it
A reporting tool pointed at the old reports would only give faster versions of the same stale numbers. The real problem was definitions. Sales velocity meant different things to finance and sales, and two systems tracked settlements differently.
Until the business agreed one definition per number, no single screen could earn everyone's trust.
/03 · How the team worked
The team sat in the weekly reporting meeting before replacing it.
The team’s engineer spent the first weeks inside the weekly rush to build the pack. The goal was to find the decision it was slowing down.
- 01 · In the room
The team sat where the pack got built.
Working with the finance and development team, the engineer watched five departments stitch 14 reports into one pack each week. Capital decisions waited on numbers that were already about a week old. The work was careful; the timing was the problem.
- 02 · Show the cost
Leaders saw how old the deciding number was.
The team date-stamped every figure in the pack. It showed capital was being allocated against last week’s picture. That turned a reporting tidy-up into a project about decision speed.
- 03 · Re-engineer the process
One definition per metric, then one screen.
First, the business agreed one definition of sales velocity, settlement, cashflow and return per asset, held in Microsoft Fabric. Then the 14 reports became one live screen. The weekly reporting meeting became a decision meeting.
The screen saved the hours spent building the pack. More importantly, capital decisions moved from a week behind to the same day the numbers change.
/04 · The cost, in numbers
By the time the picture was assembled, it described last week.
Fourteen reports, five departments, one Tuesday. Each number was true when pulled, and out of date by the time capital moved.
↳ The team didn’t need to predict a saving. It needed to show how old the deciding number was.
Reconstruction · 12 months of weekly executive packs
- Departments feeding the weekly executive view
- 5
- Separate reports built by hand each week
- 14
- Time spent assembling the pack each week
- Close to 2 days
- Delay between a number changing and leaders seeing it
- 5–8 days
- Active projects competing for the same capital
- Several, at once
- Age of the figure most capital decisions were made against
- ~1 week
Source: anonymised review of 12 months of weekly executive packs and the company’s department systems. Figures shown as bands; client details withheld.
/05 · What the team did
Measure the cost first, fix the process, then build.
- /01
Diagnose.
Weeks with the people who built the weekly pack. The team traced each of the 14 reports to its source system. It measured how old each figure was when decisions were made.
Delivered: a map of each report’s source, the age of each figure and a one-screen plan
- /02
Prepare the data.
Five department systems were connected to one trusted data layer in Microsoft Fabric. The hard part was agreeing one definition of each metric. Now sales velocity means the same thing to finance, sales and the board.
Delivered: one trusted data layer, agreed metric definitions and live refresh
- /03
Build.
A live executive dashboard shows sales velocity, settlements, project cashflow, capital deployed and return per asset. Each role sees its own view. Any number opens to the record behind it.
Delivered: one live executive dashboard, with views for each role and drill-through to source
- /04
Run and improve.
The weekly rhythm changed. With the pack building itself, the Tuesday meeting moved from checking numbers to deciding with them. Alerts now flag the metrics that need attention before the meeting.
Delivered: a decision-led weekly meeting, variance alerts and same-day capital allocation
/06 · Technology the team used
Data layer
- Microsoft Fabric: one trusted data layer
- 5 department systems connected (sales, settlements, finance, construction, capital)
- One agreed definition per metric
- Live refresh, with no manual pack assembly
What the team built
- Executive dashboard built on Power BI
- Views for each role
- Variance alerts on capital metrics
- Drill-through from screen to source record
Reporting layer
- Executive dashboard (one screen)
- Sales velocity and settlement pipeline (live)
- Project cashflow and return per asset
- Capital deployment view
/07 · What changed for each team
Sales floor
Sales and project teams stopped exporting their numbers into someone else’s spreadsheet every week. Each team sees its own live contribution, defined the same way leaders see it.
Operations
The weekly pack no longer takes close to two days to assemble across departments. The people who used to build the report now act on it. Any surprising number can be traced straight to its source record.
Board
Capital decisions that waited a week for the pack now happen on live data. Leaders see sales, settlements, cashflow and return per asset on one screen. They can move capital between projects the day the picture changes.
“We used to spend Tuesday building the view and Wednesday acting on a version of it that was already old. Now the view builds itself and we spend the time deciding. That’s the whole difference.”
/09 · Your next step
Facing the same problem? Find out what fixing it would take.
If there is a fit, a two-week fixed-fee review follows, ending in a clear go or no-go.