Hi John,
Your post hits upon one of the areas of responsibility I direct at Centerbrook Architects. I have spent a significant part of my life developing the type of checklists you mention, and more!
Centerbrook has developed a rigorous QA program that includes start-up meetings, QA reviews of project documentation, closeout meetings, and post-occupancy follow-up. We track and schedule all of this activity at our weekly management meeting. Reviews for energy modeling/lighting and BIM clash detection are also tracked. The process we have put together allows us to avoid the "black holes" by actively managing each project throughout its life. Each meeting or review has a specific checklist, meeting agenda, or resource list that is available to our project teams on the intranet and used during the meeting or review.
With regard to the types of QA checklists you mention, I review each project at every phase (SD, DD, and CD), and often include review of conceptual/preliminary phase documents and Issued-for-Construction (IFC)/conformance sets. Our checklist is currently 74 pages long! The same version is used for most projects, there is a residential version used for single-family residences, a short-form version for quick or interim reviews, and version organized by project phase. The document is divided up into sections that relate to the architectural and engineering disciplines, and includes additional sections and appendices to cover general information, contracts, code compliance, project manual format, interior design, building envelope compliance, and IBC plan review. The sections for the architectural and MEP/FP/TD discipline are organized to reflect the organization of the drawing set. We use the UDS Drawing Set Organization list of disciplines as a guide. The checklist covers both drawing and specification information. Each section is divided into phases The reviewer indicates an "X" for Yes, No, or Not Applicable in the checkboxes-- a No response leads to a written comment from the reviewer which are recorded at the end of the section and on the drawings.
The thrust of the checklist is to make sure that the project documents include the necessary content that describes the materials and methods to be used in the construction of the project, that the disciplines and are coordinated not only within themselves, but also with other disciplines, and that the construction documents demonstrate that the project is constructable in the manner that the designers intended. One emphasis we have placed on is to identify the minimum information required by our cost consultants in preparing estimates for the project. Another emphasis is toward the integration of BIM procedures in the production of the construction documents-use of BIM execution plans, workset organization, and modeling conventions.
Once I have completed going through the documents and checklist I schedule a meeting with the project team, including the principal-in-charge, to go over the comments. The drawings are scanned and sent to the consultant engineers.
We update the QA checklist periodically to include recent "lessons learned," building code and accessibility changes, and points of emphasis-- issues that recur in multiple projects. Often, comments from the QA reviews result in topics for staff training and continuing education sessions.
We believe our QA process has resulted in the firm's ability to produce complete and coordinated project documentation, better information for cost estimating, and more reliable documents for use in constructing our projects.
James A. Coan, AIA, LEED AP BD+C, CSI
Senior Director, Architectural Practice and Building Science
Centerbrook Architects and Planners, LLP
Centerbrook, CT
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James Coan AIA
Senior Director, Architectural Practice and Building Science
Centerbrook Architects & Planners
Centerbrook CT
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Original Message:
Sent: 09-21-2017 16:00
From: John Thompson
Subject: Use of Checklists for Q A
I'm formulating some QA strategies that involve checklists for our firm, and the effort is prompting a few questions about strategies for developing and using them.
Does your firm make extensive use of standard checklists for completion of projects? Or do you rely more on some senior, well experienced staff to guide the project to successful completion?
Do you use one "office standard" checklist, or do you have different checklists based on project type?
If you have office checklists, what level of frequency do your staff actually use and refer to them? Every project? Or do the binders full of checklists sit on shelves collecting dust? Do you have any formal requirement that staff members must complete and sign a checklist at a project milestone, for instance? or are they just a guidance tool for staff?
How detailed are your checklists? Many checklists (published by the AIA and others) are very comprehensive and long, attempting to address everything in cursory terms. When trying to apply these to projects, I expect most staff would miss half of the nuts and bolts that are required to complete the documents with sufficient thought and detail. which begs the question, how much detail do your checklists go into? Do you attempt to spell it all out in specific terms, or touch on the topic (i.e. "coordinate foundations with utilities") and rely on the knowledge, expertise, and memory of the production staff to "fill in the blanks"?
How are your checklists organized? One large 50 page nonstop list? Again, many checklists can evolve into one unbroken string of tasks with little logical organization, making them difficult to use and manage. Organized with tasks by phase? Organized by spec section or division?
The bottom line - I'm attempting to build a series of checklists that follow the CSI spec sections, and organize tasks within those sections by the appropriate phase. The idea being that the Job Captain or Project Manager (lead technical production manager for the project) can go through the list of Spec sections, pull out the checklists, and compile them, handing or assigning the appropriate sub-lists to the appropriate BIM workset modeler (who owns that content) to complete over the course of the project. Tasks are organized by phase, and at the end of each phase the BIM modeler would initial the bottom of the column showing those tasks checked off and confirming the tasks have all been completed. A benefit of this is that each checklist is relatively short, and specific to the products being used. I've written many of them, and we've conducted an office "reveal" to the staff going over the content of each one. Prior to the "reveal" training session, staff have been emailed a copy of the PDF file for the list directly. While we haven't created checklists for all CSI sections that we normally use yet, we've focused on those where the mistakes often happen - like Washroom Accessories of all things. Accessories often go in at the wrong height, or conflict with grab bars, and when child height dimensions are involved, staff will often not remember the correct heights (or consult the codes and guidelines). The checklists lay all of this information out, in one convenient location with graphics. Until we have all of our "usual" sections complete, we encourage the staff to use them; but to date, usually the staff don't even remember that we have them to refer to. Before I expend a signficant part of my life developing more of these, I'm wondering if the checklist black hole syndrome is widespread, or if it's just us, because we aren't enforcing them yet.
Thoughts?
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John Thompson
Production Coordinator
Dore & Whittier Architects, Inc.
Burlington VT
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