CONSTRUCTION WIP MEETING
BEST PRACTICES.
A WIP meeting only works if it happens monthly, includes both the financial owner and whoever runs each job day to day, and walks every active job individually asking why it moved the way it did since last month. A WIP report emailed around with no discussion catches almost nothing; the meeting is where variance actually gets explained and corrected.
Producing a WIP schedule and reviewing it are two different activities, and most of the value sits in the second one. A report sitting in an inbox doesn't ask anyone why a job's overbilling position doubled since last month, or why a job that was tracking fine is suddenly showing underbilling. The meeting is where that question actually gets asked, out loud, to the person who can answer it, while there's still time to do something about the answer.
DISCUSSION CATCHES WHAT A REPORT CAN'T.
A WIP report shows the numbers. A WIP meeting asks why the numbers moved, which is where the actual diagnostic value sits. A job that shifted from underbilled to overbilled in one month might reflect a legitimate billing catch-up, or it might reflect a change order that got billed without the corresponding cost being tracked yet.
Without the conversation, that distinction never gets made, and the report just becomes a historical record instead of a tool that catches problems while they're still correctable.
THE RIGHT ATTENDEES.
At minimum, the meeting needs the person who owns the financials, controller or CFO, and whoever runs each job day to day, project manager or superintendent. The financial side brings the numbers; the operations side brings the context for why they moved.
On a larger job portfolio, this can mean reviewing different jobs with different project managers rather than one long meeting covering everything at once, but the principle stays the same: financial and operational perspective in the same conversation, every month.
THE ACTUAL AGENDA.
For every active job: has the overbilling or underbilling position changed since last month, and why. Is the cost-to-complete estimate still accurate, or has something on the job changed that should update it. Are there change orders performed but not yet billed, or billed but not yet reflected in cost.
Those three questions, asked consistently every month for every job, catch the large majority of the variance that would otherwise surface only at closeout.
WHAT MATTERS MOST.
WHERE IT GOES WRONG.
Common belief: "We email the WIP report around, that counts as review."
What's actually true: A report with no discussion rarely gets read closely enough to catch the specific variance driving a number, since there's no one asking why a job moved the way it did.
Common belief: "We only pull everyone together when a bonding renewal is coming up."
What's actually true: Reviewing WIP only around a renewal misses months of drift that could have been caught and corrected earlier. The habit needs to be monthly, not event-driven.
Common belief: "Our project managers don't need to be in the WIP meeting, that's a finance thing."
What's actually true: Project managers have the operational context, what actually happened on the job, that explains why the numbers moved. Without them in the room, the finance side is left guessing at the why.
FREQUENTLY ASKED.
