Review a small selection of jobs regularly and every job with a significant unexpected result. The purpose is to improve future decisions, not to create a post-mortem for every minor variation.
- Project and service type: [write here]
- Original inquiry source: [known source or unknown]
- Customer objective and important constraints: [write here]
Commercial result
- Accepted price and approved changes: [amounts]
- Estimated and actual delivery hours: [hours]
- Estimated and actual costs on the same basis: [amounts]
- Time spent qualifying, visiting, quoting and managing: [hours]
- Invoices issued, money received and outstanding items: [details]
What explains the difference
- Was a task omitted from the estimate?
- Did scope change, and was that change approved and billed correctly?
- Did a supplier, access issue or customer decision affect the work?
- Was there rework, and what caused it?
- Did the customer understand what was included and what happened next?
What we will change
- One estimating assumption to update: [write here]
- One inquiry, quote or delivery instruction to improve: [write here]
- Something that worked and should be repeated: [write here]
- Owner and review date for the change: [write here]
- Would we actively seek this kind of job again, and under what conditions? [write here]
Use consistent cost definitions and avoid counting the same expense twice. If an estimate was accurate but delivery ran over, investigate execution. If delivery was efficient but the job still left too little, investigate pricing and scope. The same disappointing total can come from different causes.