07/08/2026
For more than 20 years of professional practice as a consultant, I have had the opportunity to work from different sides of the construction project—as adviser to project owners, alongside architects and engineers, with builders and contractors, and with project teams responsible for turning plans into completed buildings.
Over those years, we developed our own guides, forms, checklists, frameworks, proposal formats, and working documents.
They were never originally created for publication.
They were created because we needed them in actual practice—to help clients define what they wanted, identify what should be included, organize project information, compare proposals, manage construction, document decisions, control changes, and verify what was actually being delivered.
Those who have attended my classes over the years have probably seen many of these actual forms and documents. I have always been generous in sharing them because I believe that professional knowledge becomes more valuable when it helps improve practice beyond our own projects.
But being a busy practitioner also meant that we never really had the time to sit down, organize everything, and look at this growing body of work as something that could eventually be published.
Interestingly, some of these materials have already found their way into the work of former students and other practitioners.
Some have been professional enough to acknowledge me and BUILD QUOTIENT® as the source.
Others, unfortunately, have substantially reproduced forms, proposal formats, frameworks, and documents we developed and presented them without attribution—or even as their own work.
Rather than allowing that to discourage us, it has made us think more seriously about properly documenting and publishing what we have developed through actual practice.
The screenshots here show only a portion of what we are now organizing under BUILDING IT RIGHT—a practical, independent advisory series intended primarily for people who are planning to build a house, currently working with their design consultants, already under construction with a builder or contractor, or approaching project completion and turnover.
The purpose is not to teach project owners to design, engineer, estimate, or construct the house themselves.
The technical work remains with the architects, engineers, builders, contractors, project managers, and other qualified professionals responsible for it.
A project owner should not have to become a technical professional simply to protect his or her interests in a construction project.
BUILDING IT RIGHT is intended to help the owner become a better-informed client.
It provides an independent reference for understanding what should be discussed, defined, documented, priced, coordinated, inspected, and eventually accepted.
In many residential projects, the owner is surrounded by professionals yet may still struggle to answer very basic questions:
Have I clearly communicated what I require?
Is everything I expect actually included?
Are the quotations I am comparing based on the same scope?
What decisions are still mine to make?
What should my consultants and builder be coordinating?
What should be checked before work is concealed?
How do I know whether what I am being billed for has actually been completed?
What should I receive before I accept the house?
These are not questions about doing the architect’s, engineer’s, or contractor’s job.
They are questions every responsible project owner should be able to ask.
The guides are therefore being developed as an independent project-owner advisory reference—based on more than two decades of our own consulting and construction project management practice, and on the same BUILD QUOTIENT® governance systems we use professionally.
They are intended to sit on the owner’s side of the table: helping the owner understand the project sufficiently to communicate better with the professional team, make informed decisions, recognize omissions or unresolved issues, maintain clearer accountability, and know when further professional advice is needed.
The guides are being developed to help owners:
define what they really need before design begins;
identify the rooms, spaces, systems, assemblies, and materials that may need to form part of the project;
discover possible scope omissions before they become additional costs or change orders;
understand what is actually included—and excluded—in proposals and quotations;
compare builders and contractors based on scope, responsibility, and value—not price alone;
understand which decisions need to be made and when;
know how construction work should generally be organized and sequenced;
recognize what should be inspected before it gets covered up;
verify materials, workmanship, fixtures, finishes, and building systems;
track incomplete work, defects, changes, and responsibilities;
understand what should be completed before progress payments and final acceptance;
know what drawings, warranties, manuals, testing records, and other information should be received at turnover; and
maintain a clearer record of the house after construction.
We are now at a crossroads.
Do we publish everything as one comprehensive BUILDING IT RIGHT Residential Project Owner Guide, following the owner from the earliest project requirements all the way through construction, quality verification, turnover, and maintenance?
Or would it be more useful to release the material volume by volume, with shorter practical guides addressing the different stages of building a house?
For example:
Before You Design — What do you really need?
Before You Price — What exactly should be included?
Before You Contract — What are you buying, and who is responsible for what?
Before You Build — How should the work be organized?
While You Build — How do you know the project is actually under control?
Before Work Is Covered — What should have been inspected?
Before You Pay — What has actually been completed?
Before You Accept — Was it built right?
After You Move In — What records and information should you keep?
Before we finalize the publication format, I would genuinely like to hear from project owners, future homeowners, architects, engineers, builders, contractors, project managers, and anyone who has recently gone through the experience of building a house.
Which three of these benefits would matter most to you as a project owner?
And which format would you prefer?
A — One comprehensive reference covering the entire residential project journey
B — Shorter practical guides for each stage
C — Both: individual guides first, eventually forming one complete reference
Most importantly:
If you could avoid just one costly mistake when building your house, what would you want a guide like this to help you prevent?
I would be very interested to hear your answers before we decide what to publish first.
BUILDING IT RIGHT
Know what you need.
Know what should be included.
Know what you are paying for.
Know what to check.
Know when the work is truly complete.
