After accuracy is locked in, you can focus on speed.
getty
A garage door is the kind of feature nobody notices…until it leaks.
In an instance many years ago, our team hired a subcontractor to install an exterior piece of single-family homes in numerous communities. From the outside, everything looked fine. But over time, water was slowly seeping in, causing damage that no one could see without deconstruction.
When the company investigated, the same issue had been repeated across a majority of the homes one of our many subcontractors worked on. Fixing it became a full-scale operation that included contacting every homeowner directly, followed by replacements and a years-long ordeal.
The price was substantial financially and in terms of trust and time. All of this could have been avoided if we had a simple “trust but verify” process. And it’s stories like this that illustrate why I now always say, “Accuracy first, speed second.”
Unfortunately, we live in an era where it’s popular to “move fast and break things,” and many have realized it’s not beneficial. While the move-fast mindset might fit some tech and scientific contexts, in industries like construction, the stakes include credibility, trust, and safety.
For years, I always talked about the importance of “speed and accuracy.” This is a phrase I’d always hear Jim Hubbell, our former CEO, say at the close of every single executive committee meeting. It became almost a ritual, a mantra of sorts. His point was that we had to maintain our reputation for doing things quickly and well as we grew. For a long time, I repeated this mantra to others without much thought. But then, I had a moment of clarity.
I was speaking with one of our trade partners, Duane McAninch, the founder of The McAninch Corporation—a family-owned earthmoving and underground utility company. During that discussion, I talked about speed and accuracy, but that’s when Duane interrupted me and said, “Rick, Rick, Rick, I appreciate what you’re saying, but let’s set the record straight. It’s really accuracy first, then speed. Get the accuracy right, and then you can focus on doing things faster. But if you prioritize speed over accuracy, you’re going to end up costing yourself a lot more in the long run.”
He added, “When I’ve got a guy running a scraper, he can go as fast as he wants, but if he’s not paying attention to what he’s doing, he can cost me more money in minutes than I’d make in a month. Those machines move a lot of dirt, and they can make a mess even faster. Accuracy comes first.”
As soon as these words left his mouth, I knew he was right, and I changed my vocabulary.
So, how do you maintain construction quality assurance when you scale?
You stop relying on heroics and start relying on systems.
As Hubbell grew, I saw quality becoming harder to protect because fewer of the most experienced “construction eyes” were involved in every project detail. That created a gap between the standard customers expected and what a fast-moving operation might accidentally deliver.
The fix was to build accuracy into the workflow. This starts in design, where internal experts and outside consultants review architectural and engineering work to verify details upfront. Then it continues on-site through more rigorous plan review, inspections, and consultant evaluations at key stages—catching issues before they become costly mistakes.
Documentation became part of the control loop, including photographs, video, and drone footage, to spot patterns early and prevent a single bad detail from multiplying across a whole portfolio.
Speed in construction does not come from rushing. It comes from coordination. When the process is well organized, the job moves quickly because everyone can do their work at the right time and in the right sequence.
One of the most common schedule killers I see happens when a subcontractor arrives ready to start, only to discover that the previous trade has not completed its work. The site is not ready, so the crew leaves for another job. Now you have lost days, or even weeks, simply because one handoff was inaccurate.
That is why the idea of accuracy versus speed is often a false choice. When accuracy is built into the process through clear handoffs, defined standards, and meaningful checkpoints, projects actually move faster. You avoid the delays caused by correcting preventable mistakes.
When those systems are working well, workflows. Crews arrive when the job is ready for them. Inspections confirm that the previous step was completed properly. And everyone can move forward with confidence instead of guessing.
That is how you deliver projects on time and on budget without gambling with your reputation. Speed becomes the natural result of doing things right the first time.
If there is one practical takeaway from this, choose one core process in your operation and review it through the lens of accuracy. Start where small mistakes tend to repeat themselves, whether that is design review, a trade handoff, an inspection checklist, or subcontractor onboarding and insurance verification. Add one verification point. Document it clearly so there is no confusion about what “complete” means before the next step begins.
It may seem like a small discipline, but those small disciplines are exactly what prevent minor details from becoming hundred-house problems later.
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