21 Sep 2026 - Behind the Facade
Damien Quinn on doing the work before automating it.
After almost 15 years at Multiplex, Damien Quinn moved into construction software. His conversation with Jake and Daniel returns to a practical starting point: understand the process yourself.
Damien Quinn brought almost 15 years of experience at Multiplex into building Visibuild. In Episode 11 of Behind the Facade, he talks about moving from managing construction sites to starting a software company, and why knowing the work helped him make that transition.
One thread runs through the conversation: do things manually first, then work out what to automate. Before a system can save time, someone needs to understand the steps, the decisions and the points where people get stuck.
Start with one recurring task
For a trade business, that might be a site report, a handover or the way an issue gets passed from the crew to the office. Follow one example from start to finish. What information did someone need? Who supplied it? Where did the next person have to chase an answer?
That exercise gives a business something specific to improve. It also makes a software decision easier to assess: can the tool handle the actual process, including the awkward cases, and can the people doing the work use it?
These are practical questions to take from Damien's discussion. Automating a task still requires someone to decide what a complete result looks like and who acts on it.
Keep site experience in the conversation
Damien discusses construction experience as an advantage in building technology for the industry. People who have carried responsibility on site know where an apparently small delay can hold up the next step. Bringing that knowledge into the design of a system gives it a clearer job to do.