Data for a site decision: relevant records, compatible measures and evidence gaps
The manager is asked to add a second electrical crew because the floor seems behind. The daily reports contain interruption notes, but no one has connected those entries to accepted output, available work or complete effort. The team needs evidence about the actual choice, rather than a larger spreadsheet of everything recorded that week.
Start with the decision and gather only the records that can help test it. Put quantities, effort, readiness, costs and assumptions on compatible boundaries, with sources and dates beside them. A first pass can be time-boxed, but one hour does not guarantee adequate evidence. Show what is missing and when it must be checked so the decision-maker can distinguish a useful comparison from a confident story.
Build a small evidence sheet around the choice
- State the question and decision boundary. Name the options, affected package, required answer date and actual authority. For another crew, identify what work is available and what result the change seeks. Avoid starting with a generic request for every cost and production number; the records should answer a defined question.
- Pull traceable observations on compatible units. Use relevant daily reports, delivery records, accepted quantities and effort records. Keep dates, areas, completion definitions and changed conditions visible. Separate an interruption count from waiting hours, and elapsed time from person-hours. A spreadsheet total does not make unlike rooms or different resource boundaries comparable.
- Check the evidence that could change the choice. Confirm the source and meaning of the material figures and unresolved readiness assumptions with the relevant people. Ask whether entries overlap or important effort occurred elsewhere. If a crucial record is absent, identify an appropriate next check rather than treating zero recorded waiting as zero actual constraint.
- Present options with uncertainty and follow-up. Show what the evidence supports, what remains tentative and which decisions need additional review. Record the received choice, conditions and expected result check. Use a bounded trial where suitable and authorized. Preserve the evidence limits; adding staff, choosing a supplier or changing sequence still needs the actual commercial and technical decisions.
Common mistakes
- Gathering numbers before defining the decision.
- Reading interruption counts as durations or causes.
- Combining quantities and effort from unlike boundaries.
- Treating an empty record as proof that no constraint exists.
Checklist
A decision-evidence sheet shows
- The choice, authority and needed answer date.
- Traceable measures with compatible boundaries.
- Changed conditions and possible overlap.
- Important missing evidence and its next check.
- The received decision, conditions and result review.
Check your understanding
Six of ten interruption notes mention drawing answers. Can that establish sixty percent of lost person-hours?
