Defining project scope
Know exactly what your contractor is on the hook for, before anyone signs anything.
Scope of work is the boundary of what a contract requires a contractor to do, set by the specifications and drawings prepared during design. Anything a contractor performs outside that boundary isn't included in the price; it becomes a change order, a separate agreed change to the contract's scope, price, or schedule.
Scope is a boundary, not a description
A board that says "fix the pool deck" hasn't defined scope. Scope is the line that separates what the contractor must do for the contract price from everything else. Draw that line clearly, and a dispute mid project has an answer. Leave it vague, and every gap becomes a negotiation.
That line matters because of what sits on the other side of it. Once work falls outside the agreed scope, it isn't a favor or an obligation, it's a change order.
"An official change of any kind in the original scope of work or terms of a construction contract agreed to by the owner, contractor, and project designer."
Source: Change Orders, Associated General Contractors of America
Where scope actually gets written down
Scope isn't a paragraph in the contract. It lives in the specifications and drawings a design process produces, typically moving from a rough schematic design, through design development, to construction documents with enough detail to build from. The later the phase, the more precisely scope is pinned down.
Construction documents add "...drawings with greater detail," including "specifications for construction details and materials."
Source: Defining the Architect's Basic Services, American Institute of Architects
Whether your project needs a licensed design professional to produce this level of detail, or whether a smaller job can skip straight to a contractor's own written scope, depends on the project's size and on your state's contractor licensing rules. Check with your contractor licensing lesson and your own state board.
How the paperwork stays organized
Once specifications exist, they get organized so contractors can actually price and build from them. The industry's shared system for this is MasterFormat. A board doesn't write to this structure itself, but recognizing it helps a board read a specification package a design professional prepares, and spot whether something the board cares about was actually included.
"The construction industry's standardized language for project documentation" that "translates design intent into construction reality by organizing specifications into work results that contractors can price, procure, and build."
Source: MasterFormat overview, Construction Specifications Institute
Check yourself
Answer before you read the explanation, recalling it is what makes it stick.
A roof contractor finishes the job shown in the drawings, then says the chimney flashing needs replacing too and wants extra pay. What is this?
Which two documents actually define what a contractor is contractually required to do?
A board skips writing detailed specifications and just tells the contractor to fix the pool deck. Mid project, what is most likely to happen?
- Defining the Architect's Basic Services, American Institute of Architects
- MasterFormat overview, Construction Specifications Institute
- Change Orders, Associated General Contractors of America
Related elsewhere in the Academy
Capital Projects
Once scope is pinned down, the next question is who gets to build it: see Request for proposal.
Whether a licensed design professional must define your scope before work begins, and which contract form governs how change orders get priced and approved, vary by project size, by state licensing law, and by your own construction contract.