What to decide before the next report: the last page that matters most
Most owner reports end with an appendix. The last thing the reader sees is a table of change orders or a schedule printout. The reader closes the file with no clear idea of what is expected of them. A month later the same items are still open, and the report says so, and the reader is no clearer.
The fix is a last page that lists the decisions the owner must make before the next report. Not risks, not issues, not observations. Decisions, with the question stated, the options, the cost of each option, the person who decides, and the date by which it must be decided. Two to four of them. If there are none, the page says so, and that is also useful.
What counts as a decision
A decision is a question with a deadline and a cost on each side. Whether to approve a $380,000 PCO for an owner directed finish upgrade, by the fifteenth, because the subcontractor's price expires then. Whether to accept the contractor's classification of a coordination conflict as owner cost, or dispute it, because thirty days from notice is next week. Which of three flooring options to select for an allowance, by month end, because the lead time otherwise pushes the schedule.
What does not count: awareness items. The contingency burn rate is high. The buyout is 80 percent complete. These are facts from earlier pages. If a fact needs a decision, the decision goes on the last page. If it does not, it stays where it is.
The shape of a decision line
One paragraph per decision, four sentences at most. First sentence: the question. Second: the options and what each costs or saves, including the cost of deciding late. Third: who decides. Fourth: the date. If the decision needs a board vote, say so and name the meeting.
A fictional $55 million county health building provides an example. Decision one: approve PCO 41, structural reinforcement at the imaging suite, $290,000, classified as a design gap. Options: approve and pay from owner contingency now, then pursue recovery from the architect; or dispute the classification, which delays the slab pour by an estimated three weeks with general conditions exposure. Decides: the county facilities director with counsel. Due: the twentieth, the last date the pour can be scheduled without delay.
Where the decisions come from
Open flags, allowance decision deadlines, notice deadlines on PCOs, expiring subcontractor pricing, and contingency transfers that need board approval. Each of these lives in a register with a date. The last page is a filter on those registers for items due before the next report.
What happens to last month's decisions
The top of the last page, before this month's decisions, lists last month's with their outcome. Decided, with the date and the choice. Deferred, with the new date and the reason. Overdue, with the cost that the delay has now incurred. This short section holds the owner's team accountable to itself, and it gives an auditor or a successor the full decision history in one place.
Owners sometimes resist this because it records their own delays. That is its value. A decision deferred three times is a pattern the board should see. It is usually a sign that the question is not framed well enough to answer, and rewriting the question is the fix.
Building the page from the ledger
The decisions page is a derived document. Every line on it should trace to a register entry with a date: an allowance with a decision deadline, a PCO with a notice date, a flag with an open status, a contingency transfer awaiting approval. If the registers carry dates, the page is a query. If they do not, the page is a memory exercise, and it will miss things.
Costwitness assembles the decisions page from the dated items in the owner's registers and the open flags, and records the outcome of each decision against the item when it is made. The question, the options and the cost of delay are written by the owner's team, because the software can tell you that an allowance deadline is in twelve days but cannot tell you which floor finish the school wants.
What to do before the next report
- Add a final page to this month's report with two to four decisions, each with a question, options, a name and a date.
- Go through the allowance register and the PCO log and record a decision deadline against every open item that has one.
- Next month, open with the outcome of each of this month's decisions before listing new ones.
Questions on this
What if a decision belongs to the contractor or the architect rather than the owner?
Then it is not an owner decision and does not go on the page. It may be an open item or a flag. The page is for choices the owner's organization has to make. If the owner is waiting on someone else, the decision is whether to escalate, and that is an owner decision.
How far ahead should the decisions page look?
To the next report, usually one month, plus any decision whose lead time means it must be started now to be made in time. A board that meets monthly needs board level decisions flagged at least one cycle early.
Should the decisions page go to the lender?
Usually a summarized version. Lenders want to know that open items are being managed and have dates. They rarely need the options analysis. The board and the owner's own leadership need the full page.
In the product
Monthly owner report, Allowance register, Change order register. Free tool: Allowance Confidence Band, Cost Influence Curve.
Keep reading
Earlier: Why owner reports should print the way they display. Later: Flags raised and flags closed: a monthly list the board can act on. All articles on owner reporting.
See the report your board would read.
Thirty minutes on a call. We generate the twelve page report on a fictional project and hand you the sample PDF.