Risk Management, Real-Time Monitoring, and Communication

Welcome

Hello, and welcome. This is Super Structures General Contractors — a national general contractor headquartered in Powhatan, Virginia — here to help you and your clients build something that lasts. We're glad you're with us, and we look forward to connecting with you.

Here's one that matters more than its name lets on — Risk Management, Real-Time Monitoring, and Communication. If you remember one thing, make it this: A one-page risk register, a weekly cost-to-complete review, and one system of record catch a slip while it is still small enough to fix. Do this right and the month-end report stops being where you find out the job is in trouble.

A tenant-improvement contractor sat down for the week-six cost review and saw electrical rough-in at 35 percent complete and 55 percent spent. The cause took one phone call to find: the electrician was working from a drawing set that predated a lighting revision and was re-pulling circuits. Caught at week six, the rework cost $9,000 and the schedule held. Caught at month-end close, it would have been three more weeks of wrong work, a $40,000 problem, and a very different conversation with the owner. The difference was not a smarter PM. It was a thirty-minute meeting that happened every Monday whether or not anyone thought there was a problem.

The risk register

A risk register is a list of what could go wrong, how likely it is, how bad it would be, what you will do about it, and who owns it. It fits on one page for most jobs. For each risk:

• Describe it specifically. Not "schedule risk" but "elevator lead time is 16 weeks against a 20-week schedule."
• Score likelihood 1 to 3 and impact 1 to 3, and multiply. Work the 6s and 9s first.
• Choose a response: avoid it (change the plan), reduce it (early release, extra borings), transfer it (unit price, allowance, insurance), or accept it (contingency).
• Name an owner by name, not by title. Typical entries: rock in the utility trench, response is a rock unit price in the contract and a daily quantity log, owner is the superintendent. Window package lead time, response is release the submittal in week one and buy out at award, owner is the PM. Framing crew availability in June, response is a second framer pre-qualified now, owner is the operations manager. Review the register at every owner meeting. Add new risks, close resolved ones, and record every contingency release against the risk that caused it.

Weekly cost-to-complete

Static monthly reports tell you about a problem after it has cost you. Instead, thirty minutes a week with the superintendent, same day, same time:

• For each cost code: budget, committed cost, spent to date, estimated cost to complete, projected variance.
• Percent complete versus percent spent. A code 40 percent complete and 60 percent spent is a problem this week, not at month end. Percent complete comes from the superintendent's count of units in place, not from the accounting system.
• A three-week look-ahead schedule, updated weekly, so manpower and material needs surface before they become delays.
• One question for every variance: what changed, and what are we doing about it this week? Software dashboards do this automatically if costs are posted promptly. A spreadsheet works too, if someone actually updates it every week.

One system of record

Delays in information become delays on the job. Set rules and keep them:

• One place for drawings, RFIs, submittals, and change orders. No "latest set" living in someone's truck. When a revision is issued, the old sheets are marked superseded the same day.
• Turnaround targets. RFIs answered in five working days; submittals reviewed in ten. Track against them and report the aging at every owner meeting.
• Standing meetings. Weekly owner-architect-contractor meeting with minutes and action items; a weekly sub coordination meeting; a daily huddle with the crew.
• A decision log: every decision, who made it, when, and what it affected. It ends arguments later, and it is the backbone of any delay claim.
• Daily logs on every job: weather, manpower by trade, deliveries, inspections, delays and their cause, quantities installed. Five minutes a day. It is the record you need for a claim and the data you need to estimate the next job.

Going Deeper (Intermediate)

The estimated cost to complete is the number that matters, and it is the one most PMs avoid because it requires a judgment. "Budget minus spent" is not a forecast; it assumes the rest of the work will go exactly to plan, which is exactly what you are trying to find out. A real forecast asks the superintendent how many more crew-days the code needs, multiplies by the crew's daily cost, adds the committed subcontract and material, and compares the total to budget. When the forecast exceeds budget, the variance goes on the report that week, with a reason and a plan. Honest forecasts early are how a company earns the trust of its surety and its bank, and they are how the owner of the company finds out in month two instead of month eleven.

For communication, measure the turnaround you actually get, not the target. Pull the RFI log and compute the average days open. Most contractors who think they get five-day turnaround are getting twelve. Once you know the number you can raise it with the architect, with dates and the cost of each delay from Lesson 1.

Advanced / Pro-Level

Pros connect the three tools into one rhythm. A risk that materializes becomes a cost-to-complete variance the same week and a decision-log entry when the response is chosen. They use earned value language even on small jobs: planned value, earned value, actual cost, and the cost and schedule performance indexes that fall out of them, so a job's health is one number the owner of the company can read in ten seconds across every active project. A cost performance index below 0.95 for two weeks running is a meeting, not a note.

They set the RFI and submittal turnaround targets in the contract or the kickoff minutes, because a target the architect never agreed to is a wish. They write notice letters the day a delay starts, politely and factually, because most contracts require timely notice and most delay claims die for lack of it. And they treat the daily log as a legal document: written the same day, by the person who was there, with quantities and names.

Practice Challenge

Build the risk register for a two-story medical office: steel package, 16-week lead time on the elevator against a 20-week schedule, owner-furnished imaging equipment with a hard delivery date, and a site with a high water table. Name the top three risks, score them, and give each a response and an owner. (Answer: elevator lead time, likelihood 3 and impact 3, release the submittal and purchase order in week one and resequence so the shaft is ready early, PM owns it; water table, likelihood 2 and impact 3, dewatering plan and a unit price in the contract plus borings before the foundation bid is locked, superintendent owns it; owner-furnished equipment date, likelihood 2 and impact 3, written coordination schedule with rough-in requirements confirmed with the vendor and the owner, PM owns it; steel is a watch item once the mill order is confirmed and goes on the register with the delivery date.)

In Practice

A PM who runs the weekly review notices a slip when it is $9,000 and fixes it with a phone call. A PM who waits for month-end finds the same slip at $40,000, three weeks late, with a sub who now wants a change order for the rework.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Writing the risk register at kickoff and never opening it again
• Forecasting cost to complete as "budget minus spent"
• Percent complete taken from the accounting system instead of from units in place
• Letting the "latest" drawing set live in a truck
• RFI and submittal targets that nobody measures
• Daily logs written on Friday for the whole week

Takeaway: A one-page risk register, a weekly cost-to-complete review, and one system of record catch a slip while it is still small enough to fix.

Educational content — not legal, financial, or contractual advice. Every project and contract is different; follow your contract documents, your company's procedures, and the advice of your attorney, CPA, and surety.