The whole team, working at her standard.
Picture six project managers who all prepare a change order the way your best one does: written the day the work changes, priced from the right source, clear about the schedule, and ready for the client to approve on first reading. That is how you 10X what a team can do: one person’s method becomes the way the work runs.
The argument is in Everyone has the AI. One person gets the result. This is the before and the after, in full.
Before: the work as the expert tells it.
Illustrative example with invented data. The company, Client B and every record are invented.
An invented 45-person commercial interiors contractor fits out offices. When the scope changes on site, the project manager sends the client a change order: what changed, what it costs and what it does to the completion date. The senior project manager’s are approved quickly. Her colleagues’ go back and forth. Asked how she does it, she says this.
The senior project manager, in her own words
“When something changes on site I write it up the same day, because by Friday the client’s rep has forgotten they asked. I say what changed and who asked for it. I price it off the rate sheet, and if it’s trade work I get a number from the sub. I always say what it does to the schedule, even when the answer is nothing. If it’s our mistake I don’t send one. And I never send a big one cold. I call first. You just know which ones will be a fight.”
What a colleague still needs.
Every sentence is true, and a colleague still cannot run it. What counts as “asked for it”? What happens when the sub has not quoted? How big is “a big one”? Who decides that a change is our mistake?
The answers come out of one more hour with her, working through three of her past change orders: a routine one, one that went wrong and one she refused to send. The questions that turn expert judgment into a workflow your whole team can run is the interview guide. SOP exception capture records the awkward cases as they come up.
Her answers: “asked” means a written instruction on file. No quote means no price. “Big” means over $10,000 or any move in the completion date. The project manager decides whose change it is, and says why.
After: the procedure anyone can run.
Illustrative example with invented data. The runnable procedure, complete.
Prepare a change order
- Gather the site note and photos, the written instruction, the drawing reference, rate sheet RS-26, any subcontractor quote and the current programme.
- State what changed in two sentences, against the drawing reference, and name who instructed it and when.
- If there is no written instruction, hold the draft and prepare a confirmation request for the project manager to send.
- Propose the origin with its source: client request, design change, discovered condition or our error. The project manager confirms it. If the contract is unclear on who pays, stop: the operations director decides before anything goes to the client.
- If the origin is our error, prepare no change order. Draft an internal log entry instead.
- Copy labour and material prices from RS-26 and trade prices from the written quote. Never estimate. A missing quote holds that line and names the quote needed.
- State the schedule effect the project manager gives: days added, or “no change to the completion date”. Never leave it blank.
- Over $10,000, or any change to the completion date: mark the draft “call first”. The operations director approves the price, and the project manager calls the client’s representative and records the date.
- The project manager reviews, signs and sends. The change log is updated the same day.
The AI assistant prepares. The project manager decides the origin, the schedule effect and whether it goes out.
The job aid sits beside the work.
The job aid is what a project manager reads on a Tuesday afternoon with a site note in hand.
Illustrative example with invented data. The one-page job aid.
Job aid: change order preparation
- Use it when
- The work on site differs from the contract drawings, the same day you find out.
- Give it
- Site note and photos. The written instruction. The drawing reference. Any subcontractor quote. Your answer on the schedule: days added, or none.
- You get back
- A draft change order, a list of anything held and the question that clears each one.
- You check
- The origin is right. Every price traces to RS-26 or a written quote. The schedule line says what you told it.
- Stop and ask
- The contract is unclear on who pays. Take it to the operations director before anything goes to the client.
Questions and corrections go to the senior project manager, who owns the method.
Five test cases hold the standard.
Each of her judgment calls becomes a case with a result she would accept. These are expected results. A recorded run on your own work fills in the actual ones.
Illustrative example with invented data. Expected results for Client B’s level 4 fit-out.
| Case | What is supplied | Expected result |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Routine | Client B emails an instruction for six extra power outlets. Rates are on RS-26. No schedule effect. | Complete draft at $1,860, copied from RS-26, stating “no change to the completion date”. Ready for review. |
| 2. No written instruction | The client’s representative asked for a relocated doorway during a site walk. Nothing in writing. | Draft held. A confirmation request is prepared for the project manager to send. |
| 3. Missing quote | Extra ductwork for a new meeting room. The mechanical subcontractor has not quoted. | Price line held, with no estimate. The draft names the quote needed. |
| 4. Our error | A partition was built 100 mm off the drawing and must be rebuilt. | No change order. An internal log entry is drafted, and the project manager confirms the origin. |
| 5. Call first | A sprinkler reroute quoted at $14,200 that adds three days. | Draft marked “call first”, with the operations director’s approval line and a blank call date. It cannot be marked ready until both are filled. |
The senior project manager judges the first runs. A colleague who has never seen the method then runs the same five cases from the job aid alone. Build the test set that proves an AI workflow is ready shows how to assemble a set like this.
The expert becomes the owner.
Capturing her method gives her more say over the work. She now sets the standard for six people.
Illustrative example with invented data. The ownership record.
Ownership: change order preparation
- Owner
- Senior project manager. Keeps the procedure, the job aid and the test cases current.
- Approves changes
- Operations director, for the $10,000 threshold and the approval rule.
- After any change
- The owner reruns all five cases before the team uses the new version.
- New cases
- Any change order a client disputes becomes a sixth case, then a seventh.
Who owns an AI capability after the pilot? sets out the full split of responsibilities.
Do this with your team.
We start from the outcome you want, sit with the person who gets it, and use Fully Powered Studio to build and test the workflow. Your team proves it on real work in its own ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot or Gemini, with your expert judging the results, then rolls it out at its own pace. Your organization keeps control of how the work gets done.
If the work is already written down, start from From a documented process to a workflow your team runs every week.
Bring one piece of work that only one person gets right, and the person who does it.