Facility Opening Readiness Preparation Checklist

Walk in from the road or the parking area as though you had never been here, and write down every point where you would have to stop and work out where to go.

Operators stop seeing their own site within a very short time, and the hesitation points are obvious on a first walk and invisible afterwards.

Note whether it is obvious which door or gate is the way in, and whether any other entrance looks equally plausible from where somebody first stands.

Most arrival confusion comes from a second door that looks just as likely, which is straightforward to address once somebody has noticed it.

Repeat the walk after dark and record what you cannot see, including steps, edges, the gate latch and any number or name identifying the site.

Arrival in darkness is a different experience from arrival in daylight, and a facility used in the evening is used mostly in the dark.

Whether lighting on an entrance or a route is adequate is a question for a suitably qualified lighting professional rather than something settled by eye.

Note every step, threshold, slope and narrow point between the parking area and the activity area, and record where each of them sits.

Whether a route is accessible, and what would be involved in changing it, is established by a suitably qualified professional and confirmed with the relevant local authority.

Consider where somebody arriving before the facility is unlocked would wait, and whether that place is sheltered, lit or in anybody else's way.

Early arrivals gather wherever there is shelter, and if the site offers none they end up in a parking lane or pressed against a neighbouring gate while they wait.

Walk the route again carrying what users will really be carrying, such as bags, kit or a pushchair, and note where that becomes awkward.

A route that works empty-handed can be impossible with something in each hand, and doors, latches and turns are where it shows first.

Decide who is invited to the rehearsal and make sure some of them have never been on the site and had no part in building it.

People who were involved cannot see the gaps, and the value of a rehearsal comes almost entirely from those who have to work the place out.

Run the rehearsal as a genuine session from arrival to locking up, including changing, using washrooms and putting equipment back where it lives.

Problems appear in the transitions rather than in the activity, and a walk round with the lights already on tests almost nothing.

Ask somebody to watch rather than help, and write down every time a user asks a question or takes a wrong turn instead of answering it straight away.

Every question asked during a rehearsal is a piece of information the facility should have been supplying on its own.

Arrange at least part of the rehearsal at the time of day the facility will really be used, including the end of the evening if that is when it is busy.

Sites behave differently in the dark, the wet and the cold, and a rehearsal held in the pleasantest conditions confirms very little.

Note everything you personally had to unlock, fetch, move or explain during the rehearsal, since each of those is a task somebody will inherit.

The operator quietly absorbs a great many small tasks during a first session, and listing them is how an honest routine gets written.

Ask everyone who took part to write down one thing that confused them and one thing that was missing, and keep those notes with your opening record.

Comments given in conversation are gone by the following morning, and written ones can be handed straight to the contractor or the installer.

Ask for the hot water to be demonstrated at the outlet furthest from wherever it is heated rather than only at the nearest tap, and note what you are told about it.

Systems are usually demonstrated at the most convenient point, and any shortfall shows first at the far end of the run.

How a heating or hot water installation should be operated and what checks it needs is described by the installing professional rather than worked out on site.

Watch what the lighting actually does when it is switched on and when it is left alone, including anything on a timer or a sensor that somebody else set.

Settings on lighting controls are adjusted by the installing professional, and what they were originally set to is asked rather than changed.

Open and close every door and gate, including the ones nobody uses, and note any that stick, drop, fail to latch or need a particular knack.

Doors are adjusted at completion and move as a building settles, and a door that needs a knack is a door that will simply be left open.

Ask what the alarm does in ordinary use, including how somebody arriving for a session would deal with it, and try that yourself before a group has to.

How an alarm installation is set, unset and responded to is described by the company that installed it and confirmed with them before anybody else is shown.

Check for a usable phone signal at the points people would actually be standing when something goes wrong, such as the changing area or the far end of the site.

A number that works where you happen to be standing when you write it down is not the same as one that works from a changing room with the door shut.

Ask what happens to the doors, the lighting and the alarm if the electrical supply fails, and write the answer down rather than discovering it during a session.

How a facility behaves during a supply failure is described by the installing professionals and the relevant supply provider, not established by testing it yourself.

List what remains unfinished in your own words, with a photograph of each, rather than relying only on a list produced by whoever is doing the work.

Two lists rarely agree, and an owner list written in plain language is what makes the difference between them visible.

Write against each unfinished item what it actually prevents, since some hold up use of the whole site and some are simply untidy.

Sorting the list this way turns an argument about completeness into a conversation about sequence, which is a far easier one to have.

Ask the contractor directly whether any part of the site should not be used yet, and record the answer alongside the date it was given.

Whether an area is ready to be used is a matter for the contractor and the relevant qualified professionals, and is confirmed with them rather than judged on appearance.

Note any temporary arrangement still in place, such as a hired unit, a borrowed connection or a route around unfinished ground, and who is to remove it.

Temporary arrangements become permanent because nobody wrote down that they were temporary or who was meant to take them away.

Decide which areas stay out of use for now, how that is made obvious on the ground and who is able to change that decision.

An area that is closed in the operator's head but not on the ground will be used, usually by the first person who does not know.

Agree when the outstanding list is looked at again and by whom, and keep the original version rather than overwriting it as items clear.

The original shows what took longest to resolve, which is the most useful thing you will know when you next commission work anywhere.

Decide what immediate neighbours are told before use begins, including when the site will be busy and who they would contact about a problem.

A neighbour who has a name and a number complains to you, and a neighbour who has neither complains to somebody else entirely.

Check what the site owner, landlord or governing body expects to be told before a facility of this kind starts being used, and record what they say.

What must be notified before a facility opens is confirmed with the site owner and the relevant local authority, never assumed from what happens at other sites.

Confirm that waste collection and any regular delivery are arranged from the point you open, and that the standing place suits the vehicle and the users both.

Waste is arranged last and shapes an entrance more than expected, because a collection vehicle wants the same space as arriving people.

Tell anybody already using the wider site what changes for them, such as parking, noise, routes across the ground or the times things will be busy.

Existing users lose something when a new facility opens, and hearing it in advance is the difference between adjustment and grievance.

Tell whoever is still attending the site that it is now in use, and agree how their visits fit around groups being present.

How work continues at a site that is being used is agreed with the contractor and confirmed against the relevant local requirements before both happen at once.

Decide who answers questions in the opening period and make sure that person knows the arrangements rather than learning them from the people asking.

The first questions arrive faster than expected and shape the impression of a facility more than anything that was built into it.

Write down what has to be true before you open, in plain terms, and do it before any date is mentioned to anybody outside the project.

Conditions written after a date is public get quietly relaxed one at a time, by people all acting reasonably.

Decide who makes the call to open or to wait, and make sure that is one named person rather than a discussion among several.

A group decision under time pressure resolves towards whoever is most optimistic, which is rarely the person who should be deciding.

Where a condition depends on professional judgement, ask the relevant professional for their position directly and record the date they gave it.

Conditions that turn on professional judgement are answered by the qualified professional who holds it, and the answer is recorded as given rather than paraphrased.

Consider whether part of the site could be used while another part is not, and ask whether that separation is genuinely workable on the ground.

Whether an area can be kept out of use while the rest operates is confirmed with the contractor and the relevant local authority before anybody relies on it.

Work out how word of a postponed opening would actually travel, including to anybody who heard the date second hand rather than directly from you.

A date passed along by word of mouth spreads further than any list you hold, so people turn up who were never recorded as expecting to.

Consider how firmly any opening date is stated to users, since a date given as settled is difficult to move for reasons nobody outside can see.

Users accept a delay they were warned about and resent one that contradicts something they were told was certain.

Arrange for somebody to be present during the first genuine sessions and give them the job of watching rather than helping.

Problems are visible only while everything is still unfamiliar, and they vanish from view once people have learned to work around them.

Write down every question a user asks in the opening period, since each one marks something the facility or its information failed to answer on its own.

These questions stop being asked once regulars establish themselves, so the gap survives while the evidence of it disappears.

Note where people take the wrong route, use the wrong door or do something unexpected, and treat the pattern as an observation about the place rather than the people.

Repeated user error is nearly always a property of the site rather than of the users, and it is easiest to act on at the very start.

Compare what the rehearsal suggested you would have to do with what the opening period actually demanded of you, and record wherever the two turned out to differ.

The gap between a rehearsal and genuine use is where an honest description of the running work comes from, and it can only be measured while both are recent.

Record anything that appears only once the site is genuinely in use, such as a mark, a noise, a smell or water somewhere it was not before.

Anything new appearing at a facility is reported to the contractor or a suitably qualified professional promptly, since what an operator can see is rarely the whole of it.

Write down what you would change while it still seems obvious, and keep that note for whoever plans the next piece of work at this site.

This is among the most valuable lists a facility ever produces, and it exists only briefly before everybody accepts the place as it is.