A mid-job staff change is one of the fastest ways for a job file to go dark. The drawings lived in one person’s Drive. The open RFIs lived in one inbox. The photos were on a phone that has already been wiped. The new superintendent inherits a trailer and a set of text messages.

Handing a Clean Job File to a New Super Mid-Project covers how to hand a clean job file to a new super mid-project. This piece is the first-week checklist on the receiving end, and the short list a departing superintendent should leave so that week is possible. Procore and other platforms can facilitate access and a current set when the official record lives there. A company-owned Google Drive or Dropbox job file still has to be part of the handoff, because the new person needs a file they can open on a phone on day one.

What the new superintendent should be able to do in week one

By the end of the first week, and sooner if you can, the new person should be able to:

  1. Open the official current set on a phone, and say the rule out loud: if it is not in that folder, do not build from it
  2. Open the RFI and submittal logs, filter to what is still open, and see who has the ball
  3. Find the last two weeks of dailies and photos
  4. Find executed changes and any work being done on tickets that are not yet executed
  5. Find the closeout folder and the current missing-items list, even if it is thin
  6. Know who may replace a drawing, and who to call about access

If any of those require waiting on a personal email account, fix the access first. The work can wait an afternoon for a current set that is real. It cannot wait a week for a login that no longer exists.

What a departing superintendent should leave

Leave a one-page handoff in the root of the job folder, next to the README:

  • Where the current set lives, and the date it was last issued
  • Links to the logs
  • Open items that can hurt the next pour or cover-up
  • A contact list: designer, owner, GC, inspectors, and key subs
  • Anything in process that is not yet in the file: a verbal direction, a promised ticket, a warranty that was requested and never received

Walk the new person through the current-set folder and the open log, in person or on a call, with the phone in their hand. Handing over a folder tree they have never opened is not a handoff.

If the file is already a mess

Do not pretend otherwise. Stand up an honest current set and honest logs from this week forward, and move the file into a company-owned drive. You do not have to refile the entire history to start doing it right. Job file setup exists for exactly that moment. I can do the setup, or keep the file on a retainer through the transition. The files stay yours.

If you want help, not just a checklist

Some jobs run fine on a clean file and a superintendent who gives the log fifteen minutes twice a week. Others do not: revisions are moving fast, closeout is already behind, or the field simply has no hours left for paperwork.

That is where I come in. I set up the job file, run the logs on a retainer, or prepare closeout before the scramble starts. Your files stay yours, and there is no software contract to sign.

Email travis@builtonrecord.com Get the free Job File Kit