Sources & references

The numbers and claims we use on the marketing site, with the studies behind them. We round and we paraphrase — but everything links back to source so you can decide for yourself.

1. 1
   52% of projects hit scope creep — uncontrolled changes to what was originally agreed.

   From the Project Management Institute’s 2018 Pulse of the Profession, which found 52% of projects experienced scope creep — up from 43% five years earlier. It’s a cross-industry figure, not trades-specific, but the point holds: variations are normal and extremely common, and capturing them is the gap. Source: PMI, Pulse of the Profession 2018; widely cited at pmi.org/learning/library/scope-creep-rising-11308.

2. 2
   ~1 in 3 NZ residential building jobs run on a verbal agreement with no formal written contract.

   Broad figure from NZ legal and industry commentary on how often residential building work proceeds without a formal written contract — which is exactly when a clear, contemporaneous record of changes carries the most weight. Verbal agreements are valid, but when something’s questioned it’s the record made at the time that matters. Sources: NZ legal/industry commentary (e.g. LegalVision NZ, “Written Contracts vs Verbal Agreements”); see also MBIE on the Construction Contracts Act 2002, mbie.govt.nz.

3. 3
   $25k–$50k a year in scope creep and unbilled extras, a few hundred dollars at a time.

   An illustrative industry estimate, not a published study or a claim about any particular business — a realistic picture of how small, unbilled changes add up across a year of fixed-price work. We label it as illustrative wherever it appears. Source: illustrative industry estimate; figure cited by Projul, “Construction Scope Creep,” projul.com.

4. 4
   NZ Building Act 2004 $30k threshold for written contracts on residential building work.

   Under Part 4A of the Building Act 2004 (in force since 1 January 2015), a written contract is legally required for residential building work valued at $30,000 or more (incl. GST), and it must specify how variations are handled. Tydra’s customer-accepted bill PDF is the kind of “in writing” record that supports compliance — but Tydra is not a substitute for a fit-for-purpose building contract. Source: building.govt.nz — Building Act 2004, Part 4A.

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