Aslı / Partners Case Study: Optimizing Labor Costs & Efficiency in Complex Projects

Aslı / Partners is an architecture practice working on complex projects that run across several phases and many months. They use Worktivity to see how hours distribute across those phases while the project is still open.

The problem they started with

Architectural projects are priced as a whole and delivered in stages, and the stages behave very differently. Concept work is open-ended, technical drawings are dense, and site coordination arrives in unpredictable bursts.

A practice usually learns which stage overran only when the project closes, which is far too late to act on. And because every project is somewhat unique, the lesson rarely transfers to the next fee proposal.

What they use

• Time by project and phase, so effort is attributed to a stage rather than to the project as a whole

• Cost views, to compare fee against consumed hours before the project ends

• Workload views, since one project entering a heavy phase pulls people off others

What changed

Fee proposals gained a reference point. Rather than pricing the next project on impression, the practice can look at what comparable phases actually consumed. Overruns also surface mid-project, when there is still room to adjust scope or staffing.

Why this pattern fits design practices

Long projects hide their problems. A month of overrun on a nine-month project is invisible in the moment and decisive at the end. Continuous measurement is the only thing that turns that into an early signal.

What Worktivity records

Worktivity records time, activity level, the application in the foreground and the site host, and only while a shift is running. It does not record typed text, window titles or full web addresses, and it never requests the camera or microphone. The full list is here.