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CPC Certified Professional Constructor study materials
CPC Certified Professional Constructor study resources

CPC Certified Professional Constructor: Project Management and Administration: Controls, Communication, and Change

CPC Certified Professional Constructor · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.

All guide sections

Project Management and Administration: Controls, Communication, and Change

The Project Management and Administration domain tests how a constructor runs the project as a controlled business and contractual entity. Questions favor applied judgment: which document authorizes work, who owns a risk, what record proves an event, and how a change moves through approval into the baseline.

Delivery and organization

  • Design-bid-build separates design from construction and awards to the low responsive bidder; design-build gives one entity design and construction responsibility; CM at risk holds trade contracts and guarantees a maximum price; P3 bundles finance, design, construction, and operation.
  • The delivery model determines privity, review cycles, and who bears design coordination risk. Do not analyze a change without first identifying the contract structure.

Control documents

  • The contract documents govern. An RFI clarifies or interprets; a submittal demonstrates compliance; a change order modifies scope, price, or time; a field directive may authorize immediate safety work but must be confirmed in writing.
  • Daily reports, meeting minutes, photographs, and logs are contemporaneous evidence. If it is not written down, it is difficult to prove later.
  • Change control is a closed loop: identify, evaluate scope and schedule impact, price, negotiate, approve in writing, incorporate into the contract, then update cost and schedule baselines.

Worked example

A project has an approved baseline budget of $2,000,000. The owner has approved change orders totaling $120,000, and the contractor has submitted a pending change for $60,000 that is still under negotiation. The revised approved budget is $2,120,000. The pending $60,000 is tracked as a potential change, not spent as though approved. If the project manager tells the subcontractor to proceed before approval, the contractor may have created a commitment without a corresponding contract change. Correct practice: direct the work only under written authorization, or issue a carefully worded directive with a reservation of rights, and log the cost and time impact.

Traps

Treating an RFI response as a change; assuming submittal approval transfers design responsibility; accepting oral direction; reporting pending changes as approved; and closing out without as-builts, warranties, O&M manuals, lien waivers, and punch-list completion.