Use Cases · Design Maturity & Stage Readiness
Know how resolved the design is before you commit against it.
Readiness is measured against what the next gate actually requires: which requirements are settled, which are still open, and whether the information this stage expects is present. The output is a plain position on what can and cannot bear a decision yet, and a record of what was known to be open at the moment you committed.
- Stage gate readiness
- Tender readiness
- Issue for construction
- Submission readiness
Gate · fix the contract sum340 requirements
How much of the design is resolved enough to price against?
- Settled, and can bear a decision
- Open, still moving
- Not developed enough to review
Not ready to commit against 74 items
HoldCurrent practice
The gate date is fixed. The design is still moving.
Maturity is judged by how the drawings look and how confident the room sounds. There is no measure of how much of the design is actually settled, so a contract sum is fixed, a tender goes out or a package is issued for construction against work that was still moving. The gaps show up later, once the cheapest window for changing anything has closed.
- Readiness is a judgement in a meeting, not a position anyone can hand over
- Nothing distinguishes a settled requirement from one that merely has a number against it
- Provisional information is priced as though it were fixed
- When it unwinds, there is no record of what was known to be open at the time
Cost to change the design, by stage
Cost to change ↑
ConceptTechnicalOn site →
The commitment is made while changing course is still affordable. The gaps that undermine it are found once it is not. Nothing about the design changed in between. Only the price of being wrong.
With Tektome
A readiness position per gate, measured against what that gate requires.
Each gate asks for something different, so each is measured separately: what is settled, what is still open, and what cannot yet be reviewed because the design is not developed that far. Expectations come from a built-in baseline, sharpened by the project's own contract and requirements, and by any exemplar your firm supplies. The result is a readiness position you can take to a board or a client.
Approval submissionGate 1
88% settled124 items
Everything the submission is assessed against is settled and evidenced.
TenderGate 2
71% settled286 items
Facade and acoustic scope still moving, so pricing carries the risk.
Contract sumGate 3
62% settled340 items
Below the 78% this gate requires. The shortfall is itemised.
Issue for constructionGate 4
34% settled412 items
Nearly half the package is not developed far enough to review yet.
What you get
Every output carries its evidence.
A gate-readiness view, per gate
For approval, tender, contract sum and issue for construction: what is resolved, what is still open, and what cannot yet be reviewed because the design is not developed enough. Held separately, because each gate bears a different decision.
Why it mattersA single readiness percentage across the whole project answers no actual question. Readiness only means something against a named commitment.
Readiness by gate · same design
Approval submission
Ready
Tender
31 open
Contract sum
74 open
Issue for construction
Too early
A presence check against what this stage expects
Is the information this stage needs actually there? Expectations are drawn from a built-in baseline, then sharpened by the project's own contract and deliverable requirements, and by any exemplar package your firm supplies as the standard to match.
Why it mattersPresence is the honest half of maturity. It can be established rather than estimated, and a missing input explains most of what a gate turns back.
Expected at this stage · 46 items
Coordinated services model
BaselinePresent
Facade performance specification
ContractPresent
Acoustic test report
ContractAbsent
Builder's work drawings
ExemplarAbsent
Fire strategy, revision 4
BaselinePresent
- Baseline
- Your contract
- Your exemplar
Provisional or fixed, proposed then confirmed
Information that looks provisional rather than committed is put forward as a proposal, and a person confirms it before it counts toward readiness. We are explicit about this: presence and resolution are established, whereas provisional-against-fixed is a suggestion for review.
Why it mattersA number that is really a placeholder is the most dangerous thing at a gate, because it reads exactly like a decision.
Proposed, then confirmed by a person
Proposed as provisional
- Ceiling void depth, 400mmRound figure
- Riser plant allowanceMarked TBC
- Facade U-value, 1.4Unchanged since concept
Confirmed by the design lead
- Ceiling void depthFixed, keep
- Riser plant allowanceProvisional
- Facade U-valueProvisional
Only the confirmed answer counts toward readiness. Two of these three were placeholders that would have been priced as decisions.
A commit or don't-commit summary
The items that are not resolved enough to lock a decision against, stated plainly. If the commitment is made anyway, which is often the commercial reality, the record shows what was known to be open at the time and who accepted it.
Why it mattersCommitting against an unresolved design is sometimes the right call. Doing it without knowing which parts are unresolved never is.
Contract sum · what can bear the decision
Structure, substructure and frame
CommitInternal fit-out and finishes
CommitFacade package, build-up still open
Do not commitAcoustic scope, report outstanding
Do not commitPlant deck, provisional allowances
Do not commitCommitted against regardless, on 12 Aug, by the commercial director
RecordedThe readiness pack, and the record behind it
Ask for the position on any gate in plain language and get it back drawn from the live record. Reports and board packs are generated from the same position, across drawings, models and documents alike, so the readiness view a client sees is the one the team is working from.
IncludingGate readiness reports, tender readiness summaries, client and board packs, and investment committee papers, generated from your own templates.
Gate 3 pack · where each part came from
Readiness by gate
Live positionThe 74 open items, itemised
Requirement registerMissing stage information
Contract and exemplarProvisional items confirmed by a person
Named, datedWhat was committed against anyway
Decision recordEvery line traces to the requirement or document it came from
LinkedValue
What the work produces, and the value it returns.
10%
of project value lost to avoidable error, with 77% of it by value traced to inadequate planning
CITB / GIRI Productivity Commission, April 2026 · 9.83% precisely, across 25 live UK projects worth £942.5m
45%
of projects affected by inaccurate, incomplete or late design, the single largest causal cluster
HKA CRUX, 6th annual report, October 2023 · 44.8% precisely; the design share has declined since
5–40%
cost overrun attributable to design changes, depending on when in the programme they land
Design Changes in Construction Projects, ResearchGate · range across the studies reviewed
Why Tektome
A commitment is only as sound as the position it was made against.
Readiness here is assessed against what this project and this gate require, drawn from the requirement register and the contract rather than a generic rule about what a stage should contain. That is why a rule-based tool cannot produce this view: without a register there is nothing to hold the design up against. When the commitment is questioned, a reasonable-steps defence is only as good as the record behind it.
| On this | A rule-based tool |  |
|---|---|---|
| What it reports on | The model in front of it | The design against this gate's requirements |
| What it measures against | Holds no register, so there is nothing to measure resolution against | The register, so settled and open are distinguishable |
| Stage expectations | Cannot see the contract, so they stay generic | Drawn from your contract and exemplar, so they are this project's |
| Provisional values | Treats a placeholder and a decision as the same value | Proposed as provisional, and a person confirms it |
| The commitment | Says nothing about whether the design can bear it | States what can and cannot bear the decision, item by item |
Who this is relevant to
The gate date is the same. What you commit against it is not.
Fixing a contract sum, going to tender or issuing for construction against a design that is still moving is the most expensive mistake to unwind, because the window where change was cheap has already closed. The commitment is a board-level act, not a drafting one.
Legal and governance
General Counsel · Company SecretaryManaging Partner, Practice Director or Finance Director at design practices
A readiness position you can defend
What was settled and what was known to be open at the moment of commitment, recorded with the person who accepted it.
Commercial and finance
Commercial Director · Finance DirectorTender lead
Price what is actually fixed
Provisional information separated from committed, so a placeholder is not carried into a sum as though it were a decision.
Design leadership
Technical Director · Head of Design ManagementHead of Technical Excellence
Resolve the right things first
What is holding a gate back, itemised early, so effort goes to the items that move the position rather than the loudest ones.
Client and development
Development DirectorClient side
Commit with the gaps visible
How resolved the design is before capital or a submission is locked against it, while the position can still be improved.
In the project team
Architect · Engineer · BIM coordinator. See what this stage still expects and which items are provisional rather than fixed, in the tools already in use.
Next step
Interested to learn more?
A 30-minute session: a deeper look at the platform, and a conversation about the gates your firm is committing against. Nothing to set up, no project data needed.
- A gate measured against what it actually requires
- A walkthrough on a project we have prepared
- Live Q&A with our engineering team
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