This exercise presents three moments where the pressure is real and the rule is inconvenient. Pick what you would do before each reveal, then compare your choice against what the Guidelines direct.
Predict and reveal · ~8 minutes · pairs with the Week 3 videos
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How this works
Commit before you reveal
Each scenario below is the kind of moment that never happens at a convenient time. Read it, pick the response closest to what you would do, then reveal the answer. The reveal shows the response the Guidelines support and names the risk each alternative carries. Your pick stays on your screen. Nobody else sees it.
Scenario 1 · The early start
The crew can mobilize Monday
Friday, 3:40 pm. The drilling subconsultant for the Heron Pond soil borings calls. "We had a job push. We can mobilize Monday morning, otherwise our next window is three weeks out." The sub agreement is drafted and everyone expects it to be signed. It is not signed. The schedule shows the borings starting in nine days, and a three week delay would exceed the subconsultant turnaround buffer and affect the critical path.
The Guidelines' answer is c. "Do not allow work to start until the sub-agreement is fully executed. This is essential and protects us and the client." This is stated directly in Section 3.5, and essential is the strongest word that section uses. The correct Friday afternoon action is to address the actual obstacle by bringing the agreement to the Principal for review and execution, a responsibility the Guidelines assign to that role, and asking the subconsultant to hold the window.
Why the others create risk. Option a places an uninsured, uncontracted crew on a Town site, with the firm carrying every consequence and none of the terms in writing. Option b's email changes nothing. Risk allocation is established by the executed agreement, not by a courtesy note, and no email overrides the Certificate of Vote. Option d appears to be a partial solution but fails the same test. Site prep and markout are work, and the rule states that work does not start. If Monday truly cannot happen, raising the schedule conversation with the Town before the deadline is the correct approach.
Scenario 2 · The tempting number
The low quote that cannot say when
Quotes arrive for the laboratory analysis feeding the Environmental Memorandum. Firm A is 18 percent cheaper than any other quote, but the firm's reply about schedule states, "turnaround depends on intake volume at the time samples arrive." Firm B costs more, confirms a two week turnaround in writing for the required schedule window, and has performed reliably on the firm's last two projects. Module 4 will price whatever is decided here, and the budget is already tight.
The Guidelines' answer is b. Section 3.5 sets the order of operations. Contact qualified subconsultants regarding availability prior to sending price quote requests, and the Guidelines state plainly that the lowest price is not automatically the right choice, and the firm is not required to accept it. Firm A never passed the availability gate, so its price is attached to a turnaround that the firm will not commit to. Firm B passed the capability test, the calendar test, and demonstrated a positive track record.
Why the others create risk. Option a selects a price without a confirmed schedule, and the laboratory's intake volume becomes the critical path. Option c hides the risk instead of pricing it. The hidden schedule buffer is invisible to Module 4's budget and is removed the first time someone needs additional time. Option d spends days requesting a lower price from a firm that still cannot confirm a schedule, and a poor subconsultant, the Guidelines note, creates extra work and frustration for Weston & Sampson and the client. The subconsultants selected directly represent the firm to the client.
Scenario 3 · The helpful shortcut
The client starts calling the sub
Three weeks into the drilling work, you learn that the Town liaison has been calling the drilling superintendent directly with field questions, and the superintendent, being helpful, has been answering, including a question about moving one boring location. "It saves everyone a step," the liaison says when you ask. The subconsultant's work is good and the relationship is friendly.
The Guidelines' answer is b. Section 3.5 is unambiguous. The project belongs to Weston & Sampson, the client shall not communicate directly with the subcontractor or subconsultant, and it is Weston & Sampson's responsibility to manage them, not the client's responsibility. The same section states that the client shall know exactly who to call at the firm, because responsiveness makes the correct point of contact the easiest option to use. This response is direct, specific, and immediate.
Why the others create risk. Option a already resulted in moving a boring location without the project manager, the center of all project communication, ever seeing the change. That is scope and schedule drift with no one coordinating it. Option c reduces the project manager's role to receiving copies of decisions instead of making them. Option d corrects the communication problem by damaging two relationships at once, and gives the liaison a worse experience than the original problem did. The correction is not less communication. It is communication routed through the role accountable for it.
The pattern across all threeEvery scenario presented the same choice, a small convenience now weighed against a protection the firm established for a reason. The Guidelines' answer was never the fastest option. It was the option that remains correct after time has passed.
Back to the Week 3 walkthrough
This page covers the hierarchy, make or buy, and the one rule.
