Example · not a client project
This is an example, written to show the shape of the work. It is not a client engagement. Names and figures are made up.
Field operations
The shared spreadsheet stopped being the system of record
Eight people edited one spreadsheet because the job system could not show the day in the order the team actually worked.
The problem
The official job system held the bookings. It could not show a coordinator the day's visits in the order engineers actually drove them, or hold the note that only mattered that morning.
A shared spreadsheet became the real system. Two people edited it at once. Double bookings showed up on the road. The illustrative picture is a team of eight, all in the same file.
The approach
We watched a coordinator build the next day's run. The job system had the facts. It was missing one view and two fields.
The smallest practical fix was a daily board that read the job system, let one person set the order, and wrote those few fields back. A new operations platform was the wrong size of answer.
What we built
A simple internal board for the day's work, in the order it would be done.
One owner for the sequence. Engineers saw the result. They did not all edit the source.
Visit order and the morning note wrote back to the job system, which stayed the record.
The result
In this example, the spreadsheet stopped being edited by the whole team. Clashes moved from the roadside to a screen someone was watching.
Headcount and the before-and-after are illustrative. The point is the size of the tool: a board, not a new platform.
Related service: Product development