Running a construction project on WhatsApp: what works and where it breaks

Because it works. Everyone on a project already has it — the architect, the client, the site engineer and the plumber — on whatever phone they own, with nothing to install or learn. A photo from site reaches the office in seconds. A voice note says in ten seconds what would take five minutes to type. Nobody has to be convinced to use it.

For quick coordination — who is on site today, the delivery is late, the lift is down — a group chat is hard to beat, and nothing in this guide suggests giving it up. The trouble starts when the group chat becomes the only place a project keeps its questions, decisions and drawings, because a chat is built for conversation, not for records.

The answer isn't with the question

A question that holds up work gets answered somewhere further down, between deliveries and greetings. Weeks later, finding which message answered which question means scrolling. It should have been an RFI.

Drawings travel as files

"Final.pdf", "Final-v2.pdf", "Final-v2-latest.pdf". The site builds from whichever one was opened last. It should have been a drawing issued against a register.

Decisions scroll away

"Going with Onyx" is a decision, but the options, the prices and who agreed are spread across forty messages. It should have been a recorded decision.

"Pls check" has no owner

A message to the group asks everyone and no one. Without a named person and a date, it is nobody's job. It should have been a task.

The memory lives on people's phones

When someone leaves the project, the conversation they were part of often leaves with them, and someone who joins later may never see what was agreed before they arrived.

Eight messages from one week on a residential project, in the order they arrived. Four of them matter a great deal. On the right, what each of those should have become.

If your project stays on WhatsApp — and many will — a handful of rules agreed on day one solves most of the problems above. The communication plan template sets them out on one page.

1. One group per purpose. A group for the whole project, one for design coordination, one for site — and say in each group's description what it is for.
2. Confirm decisions in writing, in a fixed format. Start the message with "DECISION:", say what was decided and who decided it. Then anyone can find every decision with one search.
3. Write up RFIs. A question that holds up work goes on an RFI with a number, a location and a needed-by date. The group can carry the link; it should not carry the record. See our RFI template.
4. Never send a drawing without its number and revision. And keep a drawing register, so "which one is current" has an answer outside the chat. See our drawing register template.
5. Send the minutes as a PDF every week, within a day of the meeting. See our MoM template.
6. Summarise voice notes that carry a decision. A ten-second voice note is fine for coordination; for a decision, follow it with one written line.
7. Export the chat at milestones. At handover of each stage, export the main groups and keep them with the project files.

• Approvals that change cost, scope or programme. Those follow the contract's process, in writing.
• The issue of drawings for construction. The chat can say a drawing has been issued; the transmittal and the register are the record.
• RFIs that hold up work, beyond a link to the RFI.
• Client decisions. Record them with their options, then share the outcome in the group.

• There are more project groups than anyone can follow.
• "Which drawing is current?" comes up every week.
• People regularly cannot find an answer they know was given.
• The client asks for status updates because they cannot see the project for themselves.
• There are disagreements about what was agreed, and nobody can find the message.

Space does not ask a site to stop using WhatsApp. It gives the questions, decisions and drawings a place of their own, and keeps the conversation about them attached to them.

• Chat in Space works the way people already chat: a project group, private groups and one-to-ones, with photos and files.
• Type # or / in a message to raise a task, query or decision from it, and the message and the record point at each other.
• Conversations about a task, query or decision stay on that record instead of disappearing into a group.
• Voice and video calls start from any chat, and anyone can join from a link without an account.
• Everything outstanding for one agency, or for one room, prints as a PDF to send on WhatsApp — which is how most of a site receives instructions.