In our class entitled “Project Documentation: More Than Just the Before and After,” we discuss the importance of documentation and provide suggestions for improving your habits when it comes to preserving all documentation on a project, from customer communications to contract documents, progress pictures, and more. I equate this to the popular television show “Naked & Afraid.” If you were in a deserted area, naked, and with only one item that you could select to survive, whether a knife, fire starter, or something else, what would that be?
That one lifeline in the world of construction is documentation. It is EVERYTHING! Your lifeline is hands down documentation, particularly when you’ve successfully completed your scope of work and done right by the customer. I cannot stress enough how much documentation makes or breaks cases. If two years from now, I said produce your entire file on project XYZ, could you do it? How complete would it be? Be prepared to tell a story and recreate events from two years prior, or maybe even three.
Please evaluate and rethink your policies on preserving information. How do you ensure receipt and preservation of customer communications (especially texts), contract documents, change orders, pictures, and anything else that pertains to a particular customer or job? Perhaps a standard operating procedure of a salesman or project manager uploading all project information every Friday will boost positive behavior and create routine in this regard.
Text communications are arguably the most common communication with customers yet are incredibly challenging to capture. Please know that there are apps and easy software that can be downloaded to extract entire chains of communications with a customer, or anyone else for that matter. When a project closes work wise or financially, maybe that is the trigger or deadline by which your team needs to have all information in your system, or the cloud. Rinse and repeat.
We aim to deliver practical solutions that are easy for you to implement because All For Contractors is All For You!
