Dangers of Using a Checklist for Coordination Review

Warning: Construction checklists may be hazardous to your project health.

Got a checklist? Well, checking it twice is not going to help you. Though a construction document checklist may help guide you through the review process of a construction project, it is too general to account for every possible error. All projects require a unique review process and savvy reviewers that can think beyond the checklist.

“Checklists” are often tied to construction document coordination review services - many will even tout the merits of their quality review “checklist.” Of course checklists can be a useful tool to aid in the process of finding coordination errors, discrepancies, and omissions. However, no checklist includes everything.

There is some danger in relying too heavily on a checklist. They give a false sense of security… a false sense of “completeness” to the review since a single checklist cannot cover all situations. The types of projects (hospitals vs. parking garages), variety of building sites (in the mountains, on swamp land, over methane fields, etc.) and the A/E team’s method of representing information vary too much for a predefined checklist to include everything that should be checked for every project.

A fix to this could be to try to imagine every possible situation and put it in a checklist… however, this would make the checklist extremely long, with most of it not applying to the particular project at hand. Trying to use a checklist that mostly doesn’t apply would be time consuming and frustrating, and it would be easy to skip over some of the items that do apply!

Another danger with checklists is the implied notion that if the checklist is followed, the review will be done the same way every time, regardless of the reviewer or project. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. The execution of the tasks on the checklist can be done very differently depending on each individual doing the review. And a particular reviewer may perform that task in a large variety of ways based on the specific project in front of him. Each reviewer has their unique work style and abilities; and the drawings also have their own distinctive set of instructions and organizational style. Sound complicated? Well yes, it is.

An additional danger of relying too heavily on checklists is that it has a tendency to trap reviewers into not thinking “outside the box.” They may fall into the pattern of feeling that the review is complete once the checklist is done, instead of looking into the unique aspects of the project that should be cross checked. Unless you are building cookie cutter projects, every project is unique and needs its own distinctive review process.

The best way to avoid the dangers inherent in using checklists is for the coordination review team to only use checklists as a guide or “memory tickler.” Checklists can be of tremendous assistance, but they are not the “end-all-be-all” of an excellent review. Or you could avoid the hassle all together and contract the Nigro Firm’s brilliant review team to perform the review for you.

If you are interested in learning about the construction coordination review services that the Nigro Firm can offer, see Nigro Firm Services.

Want to know how we find our talented reviewers? See Team Development: Finding great reviewers.