Your First 90 Days as a Site Superintendent: A Practical Plan

The jump from foreman to site superintendent is one of the biggest changes in a construction career, and almost nobody trains you for it.

As a foreman, you were judged on your own crew’s work. As a super, you are judged on everyone’s: every trade, every inspection, every delivery, and every problem nobody told you about. The job moves from doing the work to making sure the work can happen.

Here is how I would approach the first 90 days, after more than 30 years of running sites.

Before Day One: Take Over the Project Properly

Whether you are starting a new job or taking over one that is already moving, get the paper before you get busy. You want the contract drawings and specifications (current revisions), the schedule, the permit set and conditions, the site safety plan, the list of subtrades and suppliers with contacts, open RFIs and submittals, and any outstanding deficiencies or inspection reports.

Write down what is missing. On a job that is already running, missing paperwork is often the first sign of where the problems are.

Week One: Walk Before You Change Anything

Walk the whole site slowly, with a notebook and a camera. Look at access, housekeeping, material storage, temporary services, fall protection and how the trades are sequenced. Take photos of existing conditions and anything already built, so you have a record of what you inherited.

Then learn who’s who. Know every foreman’s name by the end of the first week. Find out who actually makes decisions for the owner, the consultants and each trade. A lot of delays are just a question sitting with the wrong person.

Resist the urge to fix everything in week one. You do not yet know which problems are real and which are just different from how you would do it.

Days 1 to 30: Listen, Document and Find the Real Risks

• Start your daily reports on day one and keep them boring: weather, manpower by trade, work done, deliveries, inspections, visitors, problems and instructions given. Write them for a stranger who might read them in a dispute two years from now.
• Photograph everything before it is covered. Framing, services in walls, waterproofing, reinforcing, and anything that will be hidden.
• Identify the three biggest risks to the schedule and the budget. Long-lead materials, a slow approval, a trade that is short-handed, a design issue nobody has resolved. Tell your project manager what they are.

Days 31 to 60: Take Control of the Schedule

The master schedule is a promise to the trades that come after, not just a chart on the wall. Your working tool is a short-range look-ahead, usually three weeks, that you update every week.

• Run the same trade meeting, on the same day, at the same time, with the same agenda, every week, and keep it under an hour. The action log is the meeting: what, who, and by when. Everything else is conversation.
• Chase constraints, not people. Before a trade starts, check they actually can: drawings answered, materials on site, access clear, previous work inspected. Ask “what do you need from me?” before you ask “why aren’t you done?”
• Book inspections early and never let a crew stand around because of something you could have checked the day before.
• Plan tomorrow before you leave today. Most bad mornings start the afternoon before.

Days 61 to 90: Own Quality, Problems and Communication

• Check work before it is covered, and fix small quality issues on the spot, while the trade is still there. Deficiencies found at the end cost far more.
• Handle hard conversations early. Calm, specific, on the record: start with the facts, end with the next step. Bad news travels better when it arrives early and brings options.
• Your project manager should never hear about a problem from the owner first.
• Do a 90-day review with your PM or a mentor: what is working, what is not, and what you need to learn next.

Five Mistakes New Supers Make

1. Trying to be the hero instead of being organized. The best supers are organized, not heroic.
2. Believing a verbal yes. A verbal approval from an owner is not a change order.
3. Letting documentation slide when things get busy, which is exactly when you need it most.
4. Assuming something is ready without seeing it with their own eyes.
5. Going home too late, too often. A tired super misses things.

Tools for Your First 90 Days

I put everything I wish I had as a new super into the New Superintendent Playbook: a printable and fillable 90-day plan with takeover checklists, trade meeting and action log templates, documentation guides and hard-conversation scripts.

For day-to-day site management, the Site Superintendent Starter Pack bundles three of my field tools, including an end-of-day readiness sheet and go / no-go checks for high-risk work.

You can also use my free construction site troubleshooting checklist: 12 problems to catch before they become delays.