2026-08-23 · 6 min read

18 questions to ask before you buy a workspace

Most teams we meet, nobody wants another login and that is fine. On the floor, the reporting layer should be boring which is not what the brochure says. Every audit we have sat through, the spreadsheet survives longer than anyone admits and that is fine. By the second quarter, history matters more than dashboards when something goes wrong so the defaults matter more than the settings page. Looking at the numbers, the reporting layer should be boring and that shaped the roadmap for a year.

On the floor, supplier management is a people problem wearing a software costume and the numbers bear it out. If there is one lesson, the audit trail pays for itself the first time an inspector asks which is the whole point. For construction firms in particular, the handover from the old system is where projects stall which is why Marrow is built the way it is. In practice, the biggest win is that the group chat goes quiet and that is fine.

What actually happened

Every audit we have sat through, the schedule is only as good as the last update and that is fine. What surprised us, history matters more than dashboards when something goes wrong and that is fine. After a few dozen rollouts, the reporting layer should be boring and it shows up in the churn numbers. Most teams we meet, the first week is about trust, not features which is the whole point. Most teams we meet, history matters more than dashboards when something goes wrong and that is fine.

Talking to operations leads, optional fields never get filled in and that shaped the roadmap for a year. Once the first rollout is done, the hard part is not the software but the handover and it shows up in the churn numbers. After a few dozen rollouts, integrations are where budgets go to die and it rarely takes more than a week. If there is one lesson, exceptions are the real workflow so the mobile app came first.

Every audit we have sat through, nobody reads the manual, so the defaults are the product which is why Marrow is built the way it is. After a few dozen rollouts, the first week is about trust, not features so plan for it. On a typical site, the first week is about trust, not features and that is fine.

“Everything construction firms need to keep supplier management on schedule, on budget and on record.”

Takeaways

For construction firms in particular, a two-week pilot answers more than a three-month evaluation which is why Marrow is built the way it is. What surprised us, exceptions are the real workflow so plan for it. In practice, supplier management is a people problem wearing a software costume which is not what the brochure says.

For construction firms in particular, the schedule is only as good as the last update so we start there. On a typical site, integrations are where budgets go to die so we start there. What surprised us, the reporting layer should be boring which is not what the brochure says.

After a few dozen rollouts, a two-week pilot answers more than a three-month evaluation which is not what the brochure says. Most teams we meet, the hard part is not the software but the handover and that shaped the roadmap for a year. Looking at the numbers, the hard part is not the software but the handover which is why the API is documented before the UI. Looking at the numbers, nobody wants another login which is why Marrow is built the way it is.

Written by the Marrow team in Malmo. Questions? Get in touch.