Any ideas on best practices for finishing a job? Using a punch list or not?

We’ve had a lot of questions about getting through deficiency lists faster. 

Andrei Sosnovsky asked this question (he calls deficiency lists “punch” lists, as many of us do):

“Any ideas on best practice for finishing a job? Using a punch list or not? If we use it our carpenters tend to leave all small things to the end making the list too large. If we don’t use it we have to come back for small repairs numerous times.”

In reply to Andrei, our publisher Rob Koci had some good advice:

“When I was doing renovations, I found the best guy to handle the deficiency list was a subtrade that had the setup that he could do just about anything required to close a job. He could plumb, do electrical, fix cabinetry, redo tile… everything. Because he was a sub, it was easier to have higher expectations of him. At the end of the day, it was his job to close the site and he did it well. See if you can find yourself that guy. It also frees up your guys to get away from a job and a customer that they are frankly sick of and move to the next, new, exciting job.”