One of the biggest differences between experienced owners and first-time owners isn’t technical knowledge.

It’s the questions they ask.

Experienced owners don’t necessarily know more about construction, structural engineering, or building envelopes than the consultants and contractors they hire.

What they do know is where projects tend to go wrong.

They’ve seen schedules slip. They’ve dealt with change orders. They’ve navigated warranty issues. They’ve experienced the consequences of assumptions that turned out to be incorrect.

As a result, they approach projects differently.

Instead of asking, “When will it be done?”

They ask, “What’s most likely to impact the schedule?”

Instead of asking, “Are we on budget?”

They ask, “What costs are we not seeing yet?”

Instead of asking, “Is everything okay?”

They ask, “What keeps you up at night about this project?”

The quality of the answers often depends on the quality of the questions.

Good questions create better conversations. Better conversations create better decisions.

That’s one reason experienced owners tend to uncover risks earlier. They aren’t waiting for problems to be presented to them. They’re actively looking for blind spots before those blind spots become expensive.

Some of the most valuable project questions include:

  • What assumptions are we making?
  • What could delay this schedule?
  • What risks have the highest probability of occurring?
  • What decisions need to be made now instead of later?
  • What information are we still missing?
  • What would concern you if this were your project?

Notice that none of these questions are particularly complicated.

They’re just intentional.

The goal isn’t to create more work for the project team. The goal is to create more clarity.

Because uncertainty has a cost.

Sometimes that cost appears as a delay. Sometimes it appears as a change order. Sometimes it appears years later as a maintenance issue nobody anticipated.

The most valuable question on a project is often the one nobody thought to ask.

The best owners aren’t necessarily the most technical.

They’re the most curious.

And that curiosity often saves them a significant amount of time, money, and frustration.

See more in: construction monitoring, project planning, risk management