Skip to content
Menu

Difficult conversations

Telling the owner the job will finish late

By Review.LivePublished 3 min readHow we write

At 14:00 the steel fabricator confirms it: the galvanizer's backlog will hold the two exterior exit stairs for three extra weeks. The owner, a community music school, has 240 students enrolled for a term starting on 8 September. The steel subcontractor will be at tomorrow's site meeting.

Participants take handwritten notes during a discussion at a wooden table.
Photo: Dylan Gillis on Unsplash

Call the owner the day the slip is confirmed and lead with the new date; then give the cause, your recovery, their choices and the date you need a decision, and confirm it in writing that day. The owner has planned staff, moves and openings around your date, and every day of silence takes options away. News that arrives second-hand looks like concealment, and softened news keeps them planning on the old date.

  1. Get the facts within hours: what slipped, why, how firm the new date is, and what it moves.
  2. Build the recovery you control into the date before you call, so it is a date you believe.
  3. Call the person who carries the consequence, before a meeting, a consultant or a trade tells them.
  4. Lead with the new date, then the cause in one sentence, with no blame on a named trade and no "hopefully".
  5. Offer the choices that are theirs, each with its effect and the date you need an answer.
  6. Write it the same day, and send your contract's notice separately; see asking for more time.

The first two minutes

  1. You:I wanted you to hear this from me today: handover moves from 28 August to 14 September.
  2. Owner:Our term starts on the 8th.
  3. You:I know. The galvanizer is three weeks behind on the exit stairs, and sending half the steel elsewhere saves us one.
  4. You:You have two choices, and both will be in writing within the hour. I need your decision by 7 August.

Common mistakes

  • Waiting for a perfect recovery plan, so the owner hears it at the meeting.
  • Giving a hopeful date, then slipping again.
  • Arguing about who pays in the same call.

What to say

Lines for the first call

  1. You:"I wanted you to hear this from me today."
  2. You:"The new date is …, and I believe it."
  3. You:"Here's what we've already done to recover."
  4. You:"I need your decision by …"
  5. You:"You'll have it in writing within the hour."

Check your understanding

The delay comes from the owner's own late colour selection. Do you still call the same day?

Show the answer
Yes. The owner needs the new date whoever caused it. State the cause as a plain fact, such as the day the colour was confirmed and the panels' lead time, and let the notice and the time-extension request settle who bears it.

Sources

  1. FAR 52.249-10, Default (Fixed-Price Construction), paragraph (b)U.S. General Services Administration (Acquisition.gov) · United States (federal fixed-price construction contracts; an example only — your own contract governs) · accessed

Related articles