Procurement Route Decision Preparation Checklist

Write down everyone already involved in any way, what each of them is doing, and whether anything was agreed in writing.

The arrangement is usually already partly formed by the time anyone thinks about it deliberately.

Note what each existing appointment assumed would happen next, since those assumptions are shaping the arrangement without anyone stating them.

A designer appointed for one stage assumes a particular shape for what follows, and owners rarely hear that assumption.

Ask whoever is advising you what arrangement they are assuming for the project, and record the answer in their words.

Asking the question directly is often the first time it is stated at all, and it is a perfectly ordinary thing to ask.

Note what you have already committed to, and what could still change without difficulty, so you know how open the decision really is.

Knowing how much is still open is what turns an anxious conversation into a straightforward one.

Write down what arrangement you have used on any previous project, and what you found difficult or straightforward about it.

Owners carry assumptions from previous experience that may not fit the current project at all.

Ask what arrangements are commonly used for work of this size and kind, and ask for the alternatives as well as the usual one.

Asking for the alternatives alongside the usual answer is how an owner gets a choice rather than a recommendation.

Ask what design work the project actually needs, listed by stage, and how much of it is already done.

Owners frequently think the design is finished when what exists covers only the earliest stage.

Ask what happens after the drawings you already have, who produces the next stage, and whether that is a separate appointment.

The gap between a planning-stage design and a buildable one is where a great many arrangements come unstuck.

Ask what it would mean for one party to hold both the design and the building work, and what that changes for you.

This arrangement exists and is common; understanding it properly is different from being sold it.

Ask, under each arrangement you are considering, who would hold responsibility for the design, and get that answer in writing.

Design responsibility moving between parties is the part of these arrangements owners understand least.

Where design responsibility sits is a matter for your own legal adviser and the terms of each appointment.

Ask who would look at the work as it proceeds under each arrangement, and whether that person is independent of whoever is building.

Whether anyone independent is looking at the work is a real difference between arrangements and a fair question to ask.

Write down, in your own words, what each arrangement seems to offer you and what it seems to ask of you.

Writing it in your own words is the test of whether you actually understood the explanation you were given.

Ask how the work would be divided into packages or trades under each arrangement, and get that division written down.

Seeing the division on paper is what makes the joins between packages visible before they become problems.

Ask who is responsible for the places where one package meets another, and whether that is stated anywhere or simply assumed.

Junctions between packages are the classic place where an item belongs to nobody until it fails.

Ask what happens to something that turns out to be in nobody's scope, and how that would reach you.

Knowing the route these items take tells you how much of them you would be expected to absorb yourself.

Note any trade or supplier you intend to engage directly, and ask what that does to the arrangement and to the joins around them.

Owner-engaged trades are common and they change who carries the coordination at every point they touch.

What engaging a trade directly changes about responsibility and about cover is a question for your own legal adviser and for your insurer.

Note anything you intend to supply yourself, and ask what happens if it arrives late, is wrong or does not fit.

Owner-supplied items move a set of risks to the owner that are rarely spelled out at the time they are offered.

Ask who holds the overall programme under each arrangement, and who would be the one to tell you when something had slipped.

Somebody has to be holding the whole sequence, and in some arrangements that somebody turns out to be the owner.

Ask, for each arrangement, what is expected of you, described as actual activities rather than as a general level of involvement.

Activities can be assessed against your own week; a general level of involvement cannot.

Write down honestly how much time you could give this in a normal week, and during a difficult one, and use that as a constraint.

An arrangement chosen without this is chosen against an imaginary version of your life.

Note who else in the household would be involved, whether they agree to that, and who decides when the two of you differ.

Arrangements that depend on two people agreeing quickly are the ones that stall most often.

Ask what happens when you are unavailable for a period, and whether decisions would wait or be taken without you.

Owners are away, ill and busy, and an arrangement has to survive that without stopping.

Ask what it would involve to appoint someone to hold the coordination on your behalf, and what that person would and would not do.

This is a genuine option that owners frequently do not know exists until the project is already difficult.

Write down plainly what you are not willing or able to take on, and give that to whoever is advising you.

An adviser can arrange a project around a stated limit and cannot arrange one around an unspoken reluctance.

Ask what a normal week would involve for you under each arrangement, including meetings, decisions expected of you and site attendance.

The weekly picture is what makes the difference between arrangements concrete rather than abstract.

Ask how questions and decisions would reach you, how quickly answers are expected, and what happens if you cannot answer in time.

Response time is the demand owners most underestimate, and it is the one that causes most friction.

Ask what you would be asked to approve, and be clear about which of those are matters you can meaningfully judge.

Owners approving technical matters take on responsibility for them, often without anyone saying so.

Do not accept responsibility for approving a technical matter. Ask who is qualified to make that determination.

Ask who your single point of contact would be day to day, and who you would speak to when that person is unavailable.

Arrangements differ considerably in who an owner actually speaks to, which is a bigger practical difference than it sounds.

Ask what records you would receive as the work proceeds, how often they would arrive, and in what form they would reach you.

What reaches the owner routinely, rather than on request, is a real and practical difference between arrangements.

Ask, under each arrangement, what would happen when something goes wrong on site, and who you would be dealing with about it.

Every arrangement looks similar when things are going well, and they differ entirely when they are not.

Ask how a change would be raised, by whom, and what has to happen before it is carried out, under each arrangement.

The process for change is the clearest practical difference between arrangements and the least often explained.

Ask who is able to instruct a change, and whether anything you say on site could be treated as an instruction.

Owners give instructions casually on site without realising that is what they are doing.

Ask how each change is recorded, who keeps that record, and whether you receive a copy at the time.

A change that is not recorded at the time is a disagreement waiting to happen at the end of the project.

Ask specifically what happens when a change originates in the design rather than from you, and who deals with it.

Where a design change lands differs sharply between arrangements and is rarely discussed at the outset.

Ask what happens when something unexpected is found once work starts, who decides what to do, and how it reaches you.

Unforeseen conditions are normal in existing buildings, and the arrangement decides how they are handled.

Be honest about how settled your own brief is, and say so, since an unsettled brief suits some arrangements much better than others.

Owners who know they will change their minds should choose accordingly rather than discovering the constraint later.

Write the arrangements you are considering side by side, with what each asks of you and what it offers, on a single page.

One page forces the comparison that several separate conversations never produce.

Take advice from a suitably qualified adviser about the arrangement itself, separately from any conversation about who to appoint.

Advice about the arrangement from somebody hoping to be appointed under it is not the same as independent advice.

Ask what each arrangement would need the appointments to say, and take that to your own legal adviser before anything is signed.

The arrangement is expressed through the appointments, which is why they belong with a legal adviser rather than a designer.

The terms of any appointment are work for your own legal adviser. Nothing here is advice about any agreement.

Write down which arrangement you chose and why, in a few plain sentences, and keep it with the project record.

The reasoning is what you will want when somebody later suggests a change to the arrangement mid-project.

Tell everyone already involved what has been decided and when, so that nobody carries on working to a different assumption.

Existing parties carry on with their original assumption unless they are told, and that is how arrangements become mixed.

Agree with yourself at what point you would revisit the decision, such as a significant change in scope, rather than treating it as permanent.

An arrangement suited to a small project may not suit it after the scope grows, and nobody raises this unprompted.