Practical, experience-based project management lessons for project engineers, developing project managers, and field professionals.
Friday Field Notes #11: RFIs Are Not Just Questions
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FRIDAY FIELD NOTES #11 RFIs Are Not Just Questions Good morning team, This week’s topic: requests for information. 1. From the Field An RFI is often described as a way to ask the client or designer a question. That is true, but it is only part of its value. A well-written RFI identifies a specific issue in the project documents, explains why clarification is needed, and creates a record of the response used to move the work forward. It can also help establish when the issue was raised, what information was available at the time, and whether the answer affected scope, cost, schedule, quality, or safety. I’ve seen RFIs create more confusion when they were written too broadly or submitted without explaining the actual decision the team needed. The reviewer should not have to guess what is preventing the work from moving forward. 2. Leadership Perspective Good leaders help others make decisions by giving them clear and useful information. A focused RFI respects the reviewer’s time and improves the chance of receiving an answer the field can actually use. 3. Field Observation The best RFIs usually provide enough context to understand the issue without burying the question in a long narrative. Referencing the applicable drawing, specification, contract section, photograph, or field condition can make a major difference. It also helps to explain the proposed interpretation when appropriate. That does not mean deciding the answer for the client. It gives the reviewer a clear starting point and shows that the project team has already evaluated the issue. An RFI should create clarity, not simply transfer the problem to someone else. 4. Spreadsheet Tip This week’s formula: COUNTIFS Use this formula to count open RFIs that are already past their required response date. =COUNTIFS($D:$D,”Open”,$E:$E,”<”&TODAY()) In this example: Column D contains the RFI status. Column E contains the required response date. Excel counts the rows where the status is “Open” and the response date is earlier than today. This can also be adapted for submittals, action items, change requests, or punch list items. 5. Question for the Week Does your next RFI clearly explain the decision the project needs in order to move forward? Have a great weekend, Dan |
Friday Field Notes
Practical, experience-based project management lessons for project engineers, developing project managers, and field professionals.
Good morning team, This week’s topic: look-ahead schedules. 1. From the Field A look-ahead should represent what the project team actually believes is going to happen over the next few weeks. That sounds obvious, but I’ve seen look-aheads continue showing activities that everyone onsite already knows are not going to start on the dates listed. At that point, the document stops being a planning tool and becomes an exercise in updating dates. A useful look-ahead should reflect current field...
Good morning team, This week’s topic: project schedules. 1. From the Field A project schedule is obviously a planning tool, but I’ve found that its real value comes from how well it helps people understand what is supposed to happen next. A schedule can be technically correct and still be difficult to use. If the field team cannot tell what areas should be available, when subcontractors are needed, or what activities are driving the next few weeks of work, the schedule is not doing much to...
If you’re new here, Friday Field Notes is a short weekly newsletter built around practical project management lessons from the field. I originally started writing these notes for Project Engineers I was helping develop. The goal was simple: give them something useful they could read in a few minutes and apply to a real project. A lot of project management is learned through formal training, procedures, software, and project controls. But some of the most important lessons come from...