Why is the contractor issuing a change order in the Project management practice exam?
On question 22 of the publicly available practice exam for Project Management, the question asks what a contractor presents at closeout for the architect to review for a requested modification from the owner. The available answers are a punch list or a construction change order. I found this question very confusing because typically contractors do not write change orders and usually prepare a punch list at the end. However here, the construction change order is presented at close out and the punch list is not. Could anyone help me understand this question and why that is? I think the most confusing this is why is the change order being presented at the end near closeout?
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The question asked about the record documents to support the change order. A, E , F are not part of the record dwgs. Addenda is provided by Arch prior to commence the construction during the bidding process. Punch list and application of payments are not part of the change order and won't help in verifying the changes.
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A change order is required for any change in a project's scope, schedule, and/or cost, and the proposed changes presumably affect all three. And as previously mentioned, the question is only related to record documents. B, C, and D are all record documents.
Edited to add: As an aside...for both the PjM & CE exam, you will need to know the differences between a Change Order (CO, G701), Construction Change Directive (CCD, G714), and an Architect's Supplemental Instruction (ASI, G710). Understand how and why each document is used for changes in the work during construction, and be generally familiar with the documents themselves.
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from my vantage point, I see this as a possible 'construction change directive' because of the 'scope creep' from the owner, which means the owner has changed the design intent of the contract documents. The contractor may or may not agree to this change because he's now responsible for providing a 'fee' based on this new scope of work, i.e. construction change order. The architect & owner agree to the change, but the contractor doesn't agree; however, the CCD enforces the contractor to keep the construction process moving forward, while all 3 figure out on cost, time, etc. Once all 3 come to terms, the CCD then becomes a 'construction change order'...
hope this helps.
Tony
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I had a problem with this question too because I was hung up on why one of the correct answers was supplemental drawings because those are prepared by the architect not the contractor and when I’ve seen that term used it always corresponds with ASI’s not CO’s. I think the key things to note on this question is it’s asking which record documents related to the modification would be submitted by the contractor at project close out. The correct answers BCD are all record documents, relate to the change, and are all submitted at project close out by the Contractor. Admittedly I had to google this because the wording tripped me up and I kept missing the key words in this question at first.
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I found this question very confusing, too! I'm glad there's already been some discussion about it. Here's the way I'm going to try to think of it.
The architect creates the change order and supplemental drawings. (The Owner and Contractor sign off on the change order, of course.) The contractor is responsible for keeping a big stack of all the change orders, CCDs, supplemental drawings, etc. Even though the architect issued them. At the end of construction, the contractor gives this big stack of documents back to the architect. Maybe the contractor or subs made notes on them or something.
This doesn't make a ton of sense to me, but it's the only way I can wrap my head around this questions. I agree that BCD are all record documents and they relate to the change.
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