Provisional Item Conversation Preparation Checklist

Read the scope through and mark every item described as provisional, indicative, to be confirmed or subject to selection, then gather them into one list.

Open items are scattered through a document by subject, and the list only becomes manageable once they are collected in one place.

Note items that carry no provisional label but are described only in general terms, since a vague description behaves exactly like an open item in practice.

A line describing a fitting without saying which fitting is an unmade decision, whether or not anybody has called it one.

Ask whether anything shown on a drawing is standing in for a decision not yet made, because a drawn item can look entirely settled when it is not.

Drawings show something rather than nothing, and owners read the something as a choice that has already been made on their behalf.

Check which open items depend on one another, so you know which of them cannot sensibly be discussed in separate conversations.

Settling one item in isolation frequently closes an option on another, and the connection is obvious only once both are on the same list.

Write down which open items you had believed were already decided, and raise those first in the conversation.

The gap between what an owner believes is settled and what the documents say is settled is where the most avoidable disappointments come from.

Ask whether any part of the works is being carried out on a basis other than the fixed described scope, and where in your documents that is set out.

How your agreement treats work carried out on any basis other than the fixed scope is a question for your own legal adviser.

For each item, ask whether it is open because the quantity is unknown, because the selection has not been made, or because a condition has not been established.

The three behave differently: a selection can be closed by you alone, while a condition usually cannot be closed until something has been physically established.

Note which items are open because of something about the property itself, and ask what would have to happen for the position to be established.

Establishing a condition in an existing building needs qualified professionals and physical investigation, not an estimate made from the room side.

Ask whether an item is open because information from a designer or manufacturer is still awaited, and who has taken responsibility for chasing it.

Items waiting on information sit still indefinitely unless somebody is named, because everybody assumes the party who needs it most is chasing.

Note the items left open deliberately, write down who deferred them and record the reason given at the time.

A deliberate deferral is a reasonable decision that becomes an unexplained gap the moment the reason stops being recorded anywhere.

Ask which open items could be settled immediately if you simply made a choice, since those are entirely in your hands and need nobody else.

Pulling your own outstanding decisions out from everybody else makes the list far shorter and shows what is genuinely waiting on you.

Check whether an item is described as open in one document and fixed in another, and ask which document is intended to be relied on.

Which document prevails where two disagree is a matter for the appointed professionals and your own adviser, not for you to decide by choosing one.

For each open item, write down what you would need to know to be comfortable settling it, and ask who holds that information.

Owners often stall on a decision without being able to say what is missing, and naming the missing piece turns it into somebody's task.

Ask what has to be established on site before an item can be closed, who arranges that work and what happens to the surface afterwards.

Any opening up needed to answer a question should be planned and carried out under the direction of qualified professionals.

Note where settling an item needs a sample, a physical mock-up or something to look at in daylight, and ask what is available and when you could see it.

Selections made from a screen image are the ones most often regretted, and asking for something physical is a reasonable request.

Write down which open items depend on a measurement of the existing property, and ask who takes that measurement and where it is recorded.

Items waiting on a dimension often wait on nobody in particular, because measuring feels too small a task to assign to anyone.

Ask whether any open item requires something to be confirmed with an authority or a supply undertaking before it can be settled.

Anything requiring confirmation from an authority or supply undertaking must be confirmed locally with them, not resolved within the project team.

Note which items you can narrow down by ruling options out, even where you cannot settle them completely yet.

Ruling out is usually easier than choosing, and a shortened list is far more useful to the people waiting than silence is.

Write down, for each open item, who selects it, who confirms it will work in that position and who gives the instruction that makes it part of the works.

Owners often complete only the first of the three and are surprised that nothing followed from their choice.

Ask whether a decision taken with somebody on site counts as an instruction, or whether it has to come through a named route to take effect.

Ask the appointed professionals which route constitutes a valid instruction on your project, and take unclear wording to your own legal adviser.

Note where more than one household member is choosing, and decide between yourselves who speaks for the household on each kind of item.

Selections reversed shortly afterwards because somebody else had a view are among the most common causes of avoidable rework.

Ask what happens if you select something the appointed professionals consider unsuitable in that position, and how you would be told.

Whether a selection is suitable where it is going is a judgement for the qualified professionals and the manufacturer, never for the owner alone.

Record who is entitled to settle an open item if you cannot be reached, and write down the limits of what they may decide on your behalf.

Work stops or improvises when an owner is unreachable, and a named stand-in with written limits prevents both outcomes.

Ask who is responsible for telling the other trades once an open item has been settled, and how you would know that had happened.

A settled item that reaches only the person you told it to is the most ordinary way a decision fails to take effect.

Ask, for each open item, what stage of the work it must be settled by, described in terms of what happens on site rather than as a diary entry.

Stages survive changes to the programme, so a decision tied to a stage stays meaningful when everything moves.

Note which items have to be settled before something is built rather than before it is fitted, since those are the ones that genuinely cannot wait.

Anything that changes what is behind a surface closes far earlier than owners expect, because the surface goes on and stays on.

Ask what happens to the work if an item is not settled by the point it is needed, and who makes the call at that moment.

How your agreement treats late decisions is a matter for your own legal adviser; ask the parties only what happens on site.

Write down which items you can leave open longest, so your attention goes first to the ones that close soonest rather than to the ones you find interesting.

Owners naturally start with the enjoyable selections, which are usually the ones that could safely have waited.

Ask whether settling an item early removes an option you might want later, and note where waiting keeps something open for you.

Closing early is not always better, and knowing which decisions genuinely benefit from waiting is worth asking about directly.

Note which items would effectively be decided by default if you said nothing, and treat every one of those as needing an answer from you.

Silence closes more open items than agreement does, usually towards whatever is easiest for the party who is waiting.

Ask how the settling of an open item is recorded, and whether you receive a document confirming what was agreed and against which item.

Settled items recorded only in meeting conversation reopen later, because nothing exists that anybody can be pointed at.

Note what evidence is provided where an item is settled against work actually carried out, such as records of what was found and what was done.

Ask the appointed professionals what evidence normally accompanies work of that kind, and take questions about your agreement to your own adviser.

Ask how a settled item is described afterwards, so that somebody reading the papers later can still tell it was once open.

A history of what was open and when it closed explains far more about a project than a tidy final list of what was built.

Record which drawing or specification now shows the settled item, and ask for that document if you do not already hold it.

A decision that never reaches a drawing lives only in correspondence, and correspondence is not what people build from.

Ask who keeps the record of open items that have been closed, and how you can see the current position without asking each time.

Where nobody owns the list, each party keeps a partial one, and the owner ends up as the only person with the whole picture by accident.

Note which settled items change something else in the scope, and ask for those consequences to be written down at the same time rather than later.

Where settling an item changes other work, ask the appointed professionals to record the consequences in the affected documents.

Bring your list ordered by the stage each item has to be settled by, rather than in the order the items happen to appear in the document.

Document order reflects how the scope was written, which has nothing to do with what is about to be needed on site.

Write down the specific question you need answered for each item, because a conversation about a long list drifts towards whichever items are most interesting.

Without a written question, an item gets discussed for several minutes and closed with nobody quite sure what was agreed.

Note which items you are prepared to settle in the conversation itself and which you want to take away and think about, and say so at the start.

Announcing this early prevents the pressure to decide on the spot that produces the choices owners most often regret.

Ask for anything you are shown to be sent to you afterwards, since samples and images discussed in a meeting are remembered inaccurately soon afterwards.

Memory of a finish or a fitting shifts quickly, and a photograph taken at the table is usually enough to prevent the argument.

Record the answers against your list during the conversation rather than afterwards, including a mark against every item that was never reached.

The items nobody got to are the ones that vanish, because they leave no trace in anybody's notes of the meeting.

Ask at the end which items remain open and who is doing what next on each, and read that summary back before anybody leaves.

Reading the list aloud takes very little time and catches the items two people left the room understanding differently.