The project manager's weekly site walk: what to look for
Every Wednesday you drive to site, the superintendent shows you what went up that week, and you drive back with a good impression and nothing written down. The next Tuesday the consultant asks why the vapour barrier in the east stair was covered before anyone inspected it. You had walked right past it.
Walk with three questions: is the work where the schedule says it should be, what will stop or slow next week's work, and what is costing money or heading for rework. Take the look-ahead and last week's actions, walk with the superintendent, and send the actions in writing the same day. A weekly visitor sees the site in snapshots, and without a purpose the walk becomes a tour of what is going well. This is your own inspection, not the walk you prepare for the owner.
Before, during and after
- Prepare for fifteen minutes: the look-ahead, last week's actions, open changes and RFIs, and where work starts next week.
- Walk with the superintendent in the schedule's order: last week's actions, then critical work, then next week's areas.
- Compare progress with the schedule, area by area, and ask what will finish this week.
- Check next week's areas for what would stop a crew: material in the way, the previous trade still working, missing answers, access, services.
- Look for money leaking: idle rented equipment, work built differently from the drawings with no change raised, extra work without a ticket, rework, unprotected material.
- Look at work about to be covered, and confirm its inspection is booked or done.
- Send numbered actions the same day, each with an owner, a date and a photo, and put issues on the open-items list.
Common mistakes
- Walking the same route every week, so the areas off it drift unseen.
- Correcting a trade directly, around the superintendent.
- Spending the walk on one loud problem and never reaching next week's areas.
- Using the walk to catch the superintendent out, so problems are tidied away before you arrive.
Checklist
Ask the superintendent on the walk
- What finishes this week, and what might not?
- What could stop next week's crews here?
- Is anything being built differently from the drawings?
- What is about to be covered, and has it been inspected?
- What is on rent and not working?
- What do you need from me by Friday?
Check your understanding
On the walk you see conduit on a different route from the drawings. The foreman says the superintendent approved it. What do you do?
