Don't Let Amateurs Derail Your Construction Analytics

Your construction business generates massive amounts of data, from plan/forecast/actual costs, to schedules, to effort hours, to safety and quality programs. Hiring the wrong Power BI developer or consultant means getting pretty charts that don't answer your real questions, or worse, they pepper you with basic questions, then give a wrong answer that takes you in a bad direction.

How can you tell someone is the right BI consultant for your business? You’ll obviously want to ask them about Construction – if they don’t understand the business, they’re going to struggle. You also want to figure out if they know Power BI. Here are five interview questions that expose whether someone can actually deliver.

1. "Where in Power Query can you edit M code?"

Short answer: Formula Bar or Advanced Editor (both is best).

Words to listen for: ETL, Connectors, Dimension, Merge, Join.

Why it matters: Your data comes from many sources:

• PMIS (Procore, ACC, HeavyJob, etc)

• Excel sheets from the field

• ERP (Sage, Dynamics, Viewpoint, etc)

• CRM (Hubspot, Zoho, etc)

• Etc.

Unless you’ve been very intentional from day 1, the data between these systems will need massaging to fit together. Someone who can only use point and click tools in Power Query will hit a wall when integrating your messy, real-world data. They need manual editing skills to clean up inconsistent names, merge duplicate data, or combine daily subcontractor reports into meaningful trends.

2. "When would you use a Many-to-Many relationship?"

Short answer: Rarely or never.

Words to listen for: Star Schema, One-to-Many relationship, Bridge Table

Why it matters: The Semantic Model is Power BI’s piling and foundation. Poor design means your dashboards will shaky ground, running slowly and producing wrong answers, and that gets worse with more data. Using the wrong relationship could mean sums that include the wrong line items, potentially inflating your estimate or hiding cost overruns.

3. "What's the difference between SUM and SUMX?"

Short answer: SUM is the simplified version of SUMX.

Words to listen for: Iterator, Filter, Row Context, Row-By-Row.

Why it matters: This isn't academic—it's about calculating your KPIs correctly. SUM adds everything together indiscriminately, while SUMX lets you choose what and how to add. This really matters when you need to control whether you multiply or add first, like with margin percentages, or average across multiple projects. These require SUMX-level understanding to avoid misleading or outright wrong answers.

4. "Which takes precedence: Slicers, Filter Pane, or CALCULATE filters?"

Short answer: CALCULATE.

Words to listen for: Filter Context, Context Transition, CALCULATE Modifiers

Why it matters: Your executives need to slice data by region, project type, and time period simultaneously without getting conflicting numbers. A consultant who doesn't understand filter context and hierarchy (whether and how filters stack or override each other) will build dashboards that show the wrong numbers depending on how users interact with them.

5. "What is a Power BI App and why do you need it?"

Short answer: A secure way to share Power BI reports.

Words to listen for: Power BI Service, Workspace, Access, Administrator

Why it matters: You need project managers seeing their project dashboards, executives viewing company-wide metrics, and safety teams accessing near miss and incident reports, without everyone seeing everything. Apps also let consultants test updates before pushing them live, preventing that embarrassing moment when the boss sees broken reports during an important meeting.

The Bottom Line

These questions work well in live interviews but are easily defeated by ChatGPT or Google. If you understand the answers, great! If not, listen for those key words - it’s nearly impossible for a knowledgeable applicant to answer without using at least one for each question.

Also, pay attention to the nonverbal cues. Do they sound flustered, or lost? Are they hesitating, or looking around like they want to check their phone or their notes? These are intermediate-level concepts – no one claiming to be a competent BI consultant should struggle to answer.

I’ve seen too many Power BI reports full of pretty charts, but are wrong and a tangled mess underneath (including from some very reputable consulting firms). You're hiring someone to transform your construction data chaos into a competitive advantage. Ask these questions to make sure they can actually do it.

Ready to Stop Wasting Money on Amateur BI Consultants?

Need someone who can actually integrate your messy construction data from multiple systems? Want dashboards that calculate your complex KPIs correctly? Tired of reports that break when you need them most? Let's talk!

I build custom Power BI solutions that transform your construction data chaos into clear answers to keep projects on time and on budget. Contact me today to see how we can make your data clear, from bid to build to bottom line.