Writing a Construction Checklist is Easy, Right?

You may think it's a fairly simple task: writing a checklist. You want your team to be unified in how they look at verifying work completeness and quality. So, you'll write a checklist to give them a roadmap. Anyone can write a list of what they expect, right? Well, sort of. We all write task lists for groceries, chores, and reminders. But writing a checklist for construction is a bit different for several reasons: 

1. It's more technical: You must communicate critical knowledge and cover all your bases. 

2. It must be sufficiently repeatable: Checklist items typically need to capture many different circumstances. 

3. It must be readable to a wide audience: Many people of different backgrounds need to reference your checklist, not just you. This includes technical experts, inspectors (who don't always know what they're inspecting), and installers. 

Having created and edited a thousand checklists for production builders, we see a lot of mistakes that are easy to avoid. In this 3-part blog series, we'll address them all and help ensure that all of your checklists are crystal clear.

#1: Make it Easily Readable 

If you're looking for an easy win, start here. Checklists should be readable by a wide range of readers, but often aren't. Consider the following: 

First, don't write your list as instructions.

This is the most common issue we see. We typically think of our checklist as a series of instructions to the inspector, so we write each item as "Check this," "Check that," and "Verify this." There's two things wrong with this inclination:

1. Your inspector already knows they're reading a checklist, so this language is redundant, and they'll learn to ignore it.

2. Your inspector is not the only audience; the checklist may also be used by installers and managers to set expectations. They're expecting to read a list of expectations. So, instead of telling the inspector what to do, we should always seek to plainly describe the result we want -- the outcome that's applicable to all audiences. 

Second, put the most important information first.

Readers expect the first part of an article, paragraph, or sentence to hint at the rest. If the most important information is first, the whole list is easier. When someone scans the list, they first see the highlights and then read all the details (as needed). Specifically, start each checkpoint with the most important word, so your readers can find and differentiate the list faster. It will also help you identify the best order for your checkpoints.

Pro tip: If you're going digital, software often orders your checkpoints alphabetically by default, and that order will make sense if you are intentional about the first word. 

Third, repeat the same language where appropriate.

If you have a list of repeat requirements, don't write it in different ways for each item, just repeat the exact same language structure. This will help you and your readers make sense of the list. I can't tell you how many times I've seen two checkpoints in the same list that read like this: "... plumb, straight, and level" and "... has straight edges, is level, and plumb."

Here's an example of all these points in action. Read the following three checkpoints: 

1. "Ensure that there are no chips, scratches, or dents in cabinet doors." 

2. "Check that there are no cuts, scuffs, scratches or chips in countertops." 

3. "Verify that cabinet door operation is smooth." 
   

These sound reasonable, but they could be so much better. First, the "Ensure" and "Check" parts are pointless. Reword them to state what you expect, not how to inspect. Second, you have to read all the way to the end of the sentence to differentiate these items, and it's difficult to notice at first glance that 1 & 3 are both asking to check cabinet doors. Third, the types of defects in countertops and cabinet doors is similar, but worded differently, so it can be confusing. Here is a better version that also alters the order for ease-of-use: 

1. "Cabinet door operation is smooth." 

2. "Cabinet doors have no chips, scratches or dents." 

3. "Countertops have no chips, scratches, or cuts." 

So now we've covered part 1 in our checklist series: "Make it Easily Readable." Our next blog on writing good checklists will explore "Document Organization." Stay tuned!