Measure Twice, Cut Once

Architect Larry Jacobsen tells how to increase the value of checklists while decreasing the time they take to fill out.

Norm Abram, the master carpenter who is co-host of public television’s “This Old House,” recently authored a little book titled Measure Twice, Cut Once. It is a series of short lessons from a master carpenter on everything from properly using a plumb bob to thoughts on how to read instructions. But the most important lesson is in the title of the book.

The ultimate checklist reduced to its simplest form: measure twice—cut once. If we all chiseled that little phrase into our brains, perhaps we could dispense with the majority of checklists with which we are often confronted. But life’s more complicated than that, isn’t it? So let’s try to break the code of checklists and see if we can make life a little easier for all.

The whys and hows of checklists
The design and construction industry is replete with checklists. An associate once facetiously commented to me that we need a checklist to keep track of all the checklists we’re supposed to use on a project.

No small wonder. On a typical project, the designer makes in the neighborhood of 1,500 decisions ranging from the type of backfill material to be used, to the size of rebar in concrete, to the wattage of the light bulbs. And these decisions are made from a countless number of materials and products that are available.

There are checklists ranging from helping a client define his or her needs to conducting post-construction audits. Entire books have been published on design and construction checklists. Almost every professional society has, at one time or another, published checklists that cover the tenets of that society. Nearly every firm—whether it be a designer, contractor, manufacturer or supplier—has developed some form of checklist for its varied services or products. And all the checklists usually have one thing in common: Quality Assurance.

An organized review process usually takes the form of a checklist. We see checklists proliferate in the design stages of a project, constructibility reviews, single discipline (technical) reviews, scope reviews, code and regulatory reviews, value engineering, cost/budget reviews and many other areas as well.

The aim of these reviews and checklists is to force you to think through all your decisions and to get the rest of the design team oriented to the process of quality assurance. Just ask William T. Nigro, author of REDICHECK Interdisciplinary Coordination. He is retired from the Corps of Engineers, and his firm specializes in quality assurance reviews and training. The REDICHECK Firm has performed reviews on more than $1.1 billion worth of construction over the past five years. The focus of Mr. Nigro’s system is the interface of disciplines.

Rarely is a construction project a product of only one discipline. There are usually a civil/site engineer, a structural engineer and an electrical engineer. And, if the project involves facilities, you will get the architects, mechanical engineers and, many times, specialized consultants—all of whom produce designs and construction documents that, in the end, must fit together. Mr. Nigro administered hundreds of construction projects for the US Navy that were designed by civilian architectural/engineering firms. He notes that 50 percent of the thousands of change orders he negotiated were due to coordination errors that could have been avoided.

How often has a structure been put in place only to find that the mechanical duct was specified to be where the beam was? Or how about the voltage for a piece of equipment being shown differently by different disciplines?

If these faults are not found by the design firm, the contractor most certainly will find them, and usually at very inopportune times. The discouraging words of “work stoppages,” “change orders” and “litigation” are potential byproducts of a failure to check not only your own work but to coordinate with the other disciplines. From these observations, Mr. Nigro has developed a simple checklist technique for interdisciplinary documents. It has become a standard in the industry.

The construction phase of a project usually involves numerous checklists for different purposes. The installation checklist is probably the most common. Almost every component or piece of equipment on a construction project has a list of specific steps, or sequences, for installation of the item.

Safety on the job site is of paramount importance, and contractors employ numerous safety checklists for protection of the workers and visitors as well as for compliance with OSHA standards. Often the warranty on a piece of equipment is conditional on the completion of a checklist by those responsible for the installation. The checklist in this case actually becomes a certificate validating that prescribed installation techniques were used in the placement of the item. Many firms will develop checklists to be used for the punchlist on a project. This is the final check of a facility or system before it is turned over to the owner for use. Such a checklist for a major building would be a voluminous document; but for specific installations, it can be a very manageable and useful tool.

Designing the checklist
Since there is no national standard for the design of checklists (and I am not suggesting there should be), we quite naturally have a wide variety of checklist formats to choose from. Following is a suggested list of guidelines that will help make your checklist more effective:

 • Accountability—If a checklist is to become part of your firm’s quality control process, then you need to have a simple accountability feature built into the list. If one person is responsible for all the items on the list, then it is sufficient to put the person’s name and date of the checklist at the top of the list. If the list requires that different individuals sign off on different items, then the responsible party or parties should initial respective items on the list.
  • Specificity—A checklist should be organized to provide specific validation. A good example would be this item from the Steel Tank Institute’s Tank Installation Checklist: “Has the tank been air-tested at 5 psig while applying soap solution onto weld seams and fittings to check for leaks?” Compare that to “Has the tank been checked for leaks?” Your object is a quality installation—not an opinion—so put measurable results in as many of your lists as possible.
  • Brevity—A checklist is not a “how-to” manual or an educational book. Keep the individual items as brief, yet as understandable, as possible. Anyone should be able to pick up your checklist and quickly understand the intent of each of the checklist items.
  • Organize in Groups—An unbroken, 100-item checklist will soon be discarded as ponderous and unworkable. Break the checklist into meaningful groupings such as by specification section, or building systems. These bite-size components allow the reviewer to work through the list with an end in sight for each of the groupings.
  • Logic—Some checklists, particularly installation checklists, are, by nature, sequential. Many others cover a wide range of issues, such as design checklists. To the greatest extent possible, organize checklists that embody a logic sequence; i.e., the way one would logically think through an item if they were designing or building something.
  • Commentary Space—Rarely do all the items on a checklist result in simple yes or no answers. Often there is a need for further clarification, or assignment of responsibility to make some corrections, or some other annotations. Leave space after each item for the reviewer to provide additional commentary.

Putting the checklist to good use
“A good checklist does not a quality project make.” Having a good checklist does not even assure that the checklist will ever be used. A checklist is a means to an end, and the “end” is a quality project.

Quality (and the use of a checklist) requires deliberate planning. A quality project demands commitment from the highest level of authority in the organization and the checklist must be part of a quality process or culture in your organization that demands continual improvement in the product or services you are delivering.

Here are some thoughts on the effective use of checklists:

• Make checklists part of your project management system. A good project manager will use consistent methodology in organizing information on a project. This could be anything from a three-ring binder to a bank of file cabinets, depending on the size and complexity of the project. Regardless, checklists should be part of that system and be easily retrievable.
  • Schedule the use of the checklists. If the design process has milestones at, say the 30 percent, 60 percent and 90 percent stages, the checklists should be scheduled and utilized at those milestones. The oil filter commercial where the garage owner says “pay me now, or pay me later” is certainly true in this case.
  • Have the Project Manager (PM) validate that the checklists were used. If the PM does not insist on the use of the checklists as quality control vehicles, then the lists will probably never be used. The PM will often be the one who uses the checklist as he or she institutes the reviews; but regardless of who uses the lists, set up the lists so that the PM can initial and date the completed lists. It’s all part of a process of accountability and responsibility.
  • Use the checklists as working tools. Unless the checklist is a certification document, use it as a working tool for project quality, and not just another neat piece of paper that takes up room in a file cabinet. Checklists, like shop drawings, are not construction documents. They are aids to the designer or contractor in achieving a quality product. So mark them up; make lots of notes; use them as learning tools.

“Cost benefit” analysis
The benefit of checklists will be proportional to their actual use. An unused checklist is of little benefit to anyone. As the technical and regulatory requirements increase, the need for organizational methods that will ensure a quality project becomes more and more evident. Checklists and guides are a necessary component of that quality process. They remind us all to “measure twice—cut once.”

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