The Question I Ask in Every Handoff Meeting That Nobody Wants to Answer
The Challenge
The conference room goes quiet the moment I ask it. Not the kind of quiet where everyone is thinking. The kind of quiet where everyone suddenly realizes they have been sitting through these handoff meetings for years without ever actually answering the one question that determines whether this project will run smoothly or turn into a disaster. The estimator looks at the PM. The PM looks at the super. The super glances at ownership. And nobody says a word because they all just figured out that despite spending the last hour walking through numbers, schedules, and scope, they have no idea who actually makes the call when something goes sideways in week three.
Here is what happens in most handoff meetings. The estimator presents the bid, walks through the big line items, maybe mentions a few areas where the budget is tight, and then asks if there are any questions. The PM nods along, scribbles a few notes, and says it all looks good. The super flips through the plans, confirms they understand the scope, and agrees to the schedule. Everyone feels productive. Everyone feels aligned. And then the meeting ends, the project starts, and within two weeks someone is calling ownership to make a decision that should have already been defined in that room.
The problem is not that your team lacks experience. The problem is that the handoff meeting has become a formality instead of the most critical conversation your company will have on that project. It is treated like a box to check rather than the moment where you define who owns what, where the exposures are, and how decisions will get made when reality does not match the plan. So people show up, go through the motions, and walk out thinking alignment happened because nobody raised an objection. But silence is not alignment. Silence is everyone protecting their position and hoping someone else will be the one to speak up about what is unclear.
The Impact
When you skip the hard questions in the handoff meeting, the cost does not show up on day one. It shows up three weeks in when the concrete crew is falling behind and nobody knows who has the authority to make the call on whether to add labor, extend hours, or let the schedule slip. It shows up when a submittal gets rejected and the PM is scrambling to figure out if they can make a swap without eating the cost. It shows up when the super realizes the productivity assumptions in the estimate were based on conditions that do not exist in the field, and now they are stuck trying to protect a budget they never fully understood in the first place.
And here is what makes it worse. Your best people know these gaps exist. They see them every time they start a new project. But they do not say anything in the handoff meeting because the culture in that room does not reward honesty. It rewards agreeability. The estimator does not want to admit they made assumptions to win the bid. The PM does not want to look like they are questioning the numbers in front of ownership. The super does not want to be the one who slows down mobilization by asking for clarity. So everyone nods, everyone agrees, and everyone walks out hoping that the problems they are already seeing will somehow work themselves out once boots hit the ground.
They do not work themselves out. They compound. A two day concrete delay turns into a week because nobody defined upfront who approves the decision to bring in extra manpower. A change order that should have been straightforward turns into a negotiation because the scope boundaries were never made clear. The field starts operating off one set of assumptions while the office operates off another, and by the time ownership gets pulled in to make a call, the window to protect margin has already closed. Over the course of a year, these small breakdowns quietly erode hundreds of thousands of dollars in profit, maybe millions. But the deeper cost is not financial. The deeper cost is that your team stops trusting the process. They start building in their own buffers. They stop collaborating and start covering their own exposure. And when that happens, you do not have a company operating as one unit. You have individuals trying to survive a system that sets them up to fail from day one.
The Shift
I walk into the handoff meeting and ask one question: "Who owns the decision if your concrete subcontractor falls behind in week three?"
Silence every single time!! The estimator looks at the PM. The PM looks at the super. The super glances at ownership. Three people start talking at once with three completely different answers. That is when I know I am about to make this company a lot of money, because that single question just exposed every gap that has been costing them hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. Of course, we then dive deeper to really expose everything before they learn the hard way.
I do not let them move on. I force the conversation right there. I make the estimator explain what they assumed when they priced the labor. I make the PM define who has authority when schedule slips. I make sure to super clarify their expectations when productivity does not track. And I make ownership decide who owns what, because if they do not define it now, they will be the ones getting the call in week three.
I have sat through hundreds of these meetings. I know where the gaps are before anyone opens their mouth. Your team cannot do this for themselves because they are too close to it, too invested in their positions, and too worried about stepping on toes. I walk in with twenty-three years of sitting in every seat in that room, and I do not care whose feelings get hurt as long as the project starts with clarity instead of assumptions.
The contractors who bring me in see results immediately. Decisions that used to take three days get made in real time. PMs stop guessing what the estimator was thinking. Supers stop discovering budget landmines four weeks in. Ownership stops playing referee. When you multiply that across every project over the next year, you are protecting hundreds of thousands of dollars and eventually millions in profit that were walking out the door because nobody had the authority or the guts to ask the hard questions. I ask them. Every time. And I do not stop until everyone knows exactly what they own.
The Closing
If you are reading this and realizing that your handoff meetings have been checking a box instead of solving a problem, you are not the first contractor to figure that out. Most companies know the process is broken. They just do not know how to fix it without stepping on egos, challenging authority, or admitting that the way they have always done it is not working anymore. The truth is that internal teams cannot solve this on their own. They are too close to the operation. They have too much history with each other. And honestly, the culture in that room does not allow for the kind of honest conversation that needs to happen. That is why companies bring in an outside expert. Not to teach people how to do their jobs, but to create the space where the real questions can finally get asked and the real gaps can finally get fixed. Your team already knows what is broken. They are just waiting for someone to give them permission to say it out loud.
The shift does not start with a new process. It starts with one question. The question nobody wants to answer but everyone needs to hear. And once that question gets asked, everything else starts to fall into place.
Gerard Aliberti
Pro-Accel,
Owner
If your projects are starting with confusion instead of clarity, it might be time to take a hard look at how your handoff process is actually working. Pro-Accel specializes in Executive Coaching and installing the Bid Handoff Accelerator Process that eliminates the gaps between estimating and field execution. Reach out to jerry@pro-accel.com to schedule a call and discuss your operations.
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Ways We Can Work Together
- Executive Coaching – 1:1 coaching for construction owners who want clearer decisions, stronger leadership, and a business that doesn't rely solely on them
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