By Jason Kuglin, JKDesigns, LLC
Specialty contractors rarely lose control of a project because they have no information. More often, the problem is that the important information is spread across email, meeting notes, spreadsheets, drawings and several project-management systems. An unanswered RFI, an unapproved submittal, an uncommitted long-lead item or a potential change can sit quietly until it becomes a field problem.
A short daily risk review can expose those items before they become expensive.
The goal is not another meeting and not another complicated reporting system. It is a 15-minute review that answers one question: What needs attention today before it costs money or schedule?
Start With One Action List
Across every active project, maintain one simple list of items that can affect work. The tool can be a spreadsheet, a report from existing project-management software or another system the company already uses. The important part is consistency.
For each item, capture only what helps someone act:
- Project
- Item type — RFI, submittal, procurement, potential change or open issue
- Short description
- Responsible person
- Date opened
- Required or due date
- Next action
- Cost or schedule exposure, when known
- Current status
Every open item should have an owner and a next action. “Waiting” is a condition, not an action. “Call supplier for confirmed ship date” or “send GC pricing backup” tells the team what actually needs to happen.
- FIND DECISIONS THAT ARE AGING
Begin with RFIs and submittals.
Sort open items by required date and days open. Look for anything that is already late or approaching the date when the answer will affect fabrication, procurement or field work.
The useful question is not simply, “How many RFIs are open?”
Ask: “Which unanswered item will affect us first?”
An RFI that has been open 20 days may be harmless if the work is months away. Another that has been open four days may stop fabrication tomorrow. Age matters, but consequence matters more.
For each critical item, establish the next action. That may be escalating an RFI, confirming that a reviewer received a submittal, identifying an alternate detail or documenting the date an answer is required to avoid an impact.
- CHECK LONG-LEAD PROCUREMENT BACKWARD FROM NEED DATE
Procurement risk is easy to underestimate because “ordered” can sound like “handled.”
For each important material or equipment item, track the required-on-site date and work backward through the dates that make it possible: release, approval, purchase order, fabrication and shipping.
Then look for missing commitments.
If equipment is required on site December 1 and the supplier needs eight weeks after approved submittals, the useful deadline is not December 1. The useful deadline is the latest date the submittal can be approved and the order released without creating schedule exposure.
During the 15-minute review, focus on items where the required date and current commitment no longer agree.
Ask:
- Is the submittal approved?
- Has the item actually been released?
- Is the vendor ship date confirmed?
- Does that date still support installation?
- If not, who is acting today?
This turns procurement from a historical log into an early-warning system.
- SURFACE CHANGE EXPOSURE BEFORE THE PAPERWORK CATCHES UP
Potential changes often become financial problems while everyone is still deciding whether they are officially a change.
Track potential change items as soon as the exposure becomes credible. Do not wait for a formal change-order number.
Record what happened, who directed or requested it, the next documentation step and the known or estimated labor, material and schedule exposure.
The daily review should flag potential changes that have work proceeding without written direction, pricing waiting on backup, aging proposals with no decision, or schedule effects that have not been documented.
The purpose is not to argue entitlement during the review. The purpose is to make sure exposure does not disappear into email until weeks later.
- REVIEW EXCEPTIONS, NOT EVERYTHING
A 15-minute review only works if the team does not read every line every day.
Filter the list to exceptions:
- overdue actions;
- decisions required soon;
- procurement dates at risk;
- changes with unresolved cost or schedule exposure;
- items with no owner;
- items with no next action.
That exception list becomes the daily control view.
A project manager overseeing several jobs should be able to look at it and quickly determine which five or ten items deserve attention now.
- END WITH OWNERSHIP
Every flagged item should leave the review with three things: an owner, a next action and a date.
If an issue cannot be resolved internally, the action may simply be a documented escalation. That still creates accountability and a record of when the risk was recognized.
The process also makes weekly project meetings more useful. Instead of spending meeting time discovering problems, the team arrives knowing which exceptions require decisions.
A Simple Habit, Not Another Software Implementation
This process does not depend on a particular platform. Contractors can build it in Excel, configure it in existing project-management software or incorporate it into another control system.
The value comes from connecting information that is often managed separately.
RFIs affect submittals. Submittals affect procurement. Procurement affects installation. Changes affect cost and schedule. Looking at those categories independently can hide the chain of consequences.
Fifteen minutes will not solve every project problem. It can, however, expose the problems that deserve another 30 minutes before they become a lost day, an emergency shipment, unrecovered change work or a missed milestone.
For a specialty contractor managing several projects at once, that is the objective: not more information, but a reliable answer to the question that matters each morning.
What needs your attention today before it costs you money or schedule?
About the author
Jason Kuglin has more than 26 years of experience in precast construction and detailing and is the owner of JKdesign, LLC. His work focuses on practical project-control and production workflows for specialty contractors. For more information, contact jason.jkdesign@gmail.com. Check out the Trade Control Deck.and the free Trade Control Deck Starter.
