Latest / Wired to Build / Field Notes 01: The Work Isn't Done Until It's Documented

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Field Notes 01: The Work Isn't Done Until It's Documented · Wired to Build

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  I was on site last week walking a job with a quality program
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  manager from one of the top electrical contractors in the
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  country, and he said something that's stuck with me.
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  The work isn't done until it's documented.
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  He didn't say it like a slogan. He said it like someone who's
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  been burned before. And then he told me why.
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  Welcome to Wire to Build, the show about how the built world
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  actually gets delivered. I'm Nick Caravella, and this is
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  field notes, short dispatches from the field, Things I'm
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  seeing, things I'm hearing, and what the work is actually
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  teaching us. Now let's get into it.
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  A few months before that conversation, they had a failure
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  on the project. Not an install issue, but a
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  manufacturer defect. But when it came time to sort
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  out responsibility, the only thing that mattered wasn't who
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  worked the hardest or who had the most experience.
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  It was documentation. Torque values recorded, install
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  steps logged, inspections captured in sequence.
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  They didn't argue. They didn't defend with
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  opinions, they produced receipts and the manufacturer owned the
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  defect. Standing there with that story,
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  something clicked for me. Most of the time when we talk
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  about documentation and construction, it sounds like
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  admin. It sounds like paperwork.
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  It sounds like something you do after the real work is done.
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  But in that moment, it was obvious documentation was an
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  admin. It was protection.
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  Here's what I've started noticing more and more when I'm
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  walking jobs. On a lot of projects, QAQC is
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  treated like a phase. You build it, you check it, you
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  document it. I've watched crews finish and
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  install and say we'll document that later.
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  I've seen binders assembled in trailers right before turnover,
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  pencil whip after pencil whip. I've seen quality live entirely
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  in someone's head, a foreman who knows exactly how it should be
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  done. But there's no structured way
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  that knowledge gets captured as the work happens, and when that
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  person moves on to the next project, that knowledge goes
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  with them. That's not laziness, that's
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  design. We design the process so that
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  documentation happens downstream from the work.
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  But documentation after the fact is not the same as documentation
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  embedded in the act of building. When documentation is embedded,
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  it changes behavior. It forces clarity before you
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  start. It forces agreement on what done
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  right actually means. It surfaces mistakes earlier
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  when they're cheaper and easier to fix.
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  It protects the people doing the work.
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  There's a reason Checklist took off an aviation in medicine, not
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  because those industries love paperwork, but because in
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  complex environments, reliability has to be designed.
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  In construction is no different. We talk a lot about labor
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  shortages. Half a million workers short.
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  Everyone says the answers are more people.
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  But when on walking jobs, what I don't see is a shortage of
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  hands. I see that learning disappears
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  at the end of every project. I see rework caused by
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  assumptions that were never documented.
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  I see trust erode because nobody can prove it what it actually
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  happened. And every time trust erodes,
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  what do we do? We add more people, more
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  inspectors, more oversight or coordination meetings.
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  We respond to uncertainty with headcount.
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  But if work is verifiable as it happens, if quality is captured
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  in the active building, then we don't need to compensate with
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  layers later. Documentation protects
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  craftsmanship. It doesn't replace skill.
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  It doesn't diminish pride. It protects it.
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  If you're a foreman who takes pride in your installs,
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  documentation is your insurance policy.
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  If you're an electrician who knows you did it right, embedded
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  verification is the difference between defending yourself with
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  memory and defending yourself with proof.
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  And proof scales. So what that quality manager
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  said, the work isn't done until it's documented.
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  What he really meant was this. The work isn't done until it's
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  defensible. If you're on site tomorrow, pay
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  attention to when documentation happens.
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  Is it something you scramble to assemble at the end, or is it
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  built into the way the work gets executed?
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  Because the way we document changes the way we work, and
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  that changes everything. This is field notes.
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  I'll see you next time. Wire to Build is supporting by
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  its founding partner, Avocado, a consulting team heling owners
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  and roject leaders. Design smarter systems for
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  capitalprogramsifyourethinkingabouthowyourrocessesscaleacrossrojectsyoucanlearnmore@avocado.com.